Sailor Moon L
by C-kun
Summary: In a world where the time stream has gone askew, the Sailor Senshi are forced to confront horrible alien entities of incredible power in an attempt to put the future back on track; this is the world of Sailor Moon Lovecraft! Final Chapter Up.
1. Passage and Folly! New Evils Emerge

Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions 

Welcomes you to:

Sailor Moon L(ovecraft)

A Fusion with concepts from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.

Episode 1

Passage and Folly! 

New Evils Emerge

Note: Understanding this story requires no prior knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft or any of his writings. It does, however require a fair bit of knowledge of the anime series Sailor Moon. Like you'd be here if you didn't already have that. 

This story takes place after Sailor Moon S. It can be considered an alternate universe, since it takes place of Sailor Moon Super S.

1

"I PAAAAASSSSSSEEED!!" 

The cry echoed through the Juuban district of Tokyo.

2

A small, withered old woman looked dubiously at the book that she had just purchased, and then glanced at the woman who had sold it to her, who was just leaving the store. Cologne had expanded recently, deciding she could make some extra money selling rare used books, of which she had many. She had memorized them all anyway, and had been having Mousse type them all up as text files and burn them onto CD's for future generations of Amazons. Modern technology certainly was a wonder, for all her distrust of it. 

This book now... She didn't like it. It was in Latin, a language (one of the few) that she couldn't read, and what little she did know of it, which included the title, made her feel very nervous. Well, she'd just have to put it where some idiot would be sure to find it soon.

3

While Hino Rei rechecked all the answers on Tsukino Usagi's high school entrance exams in one corner of her temple room, Usagi and the rest of the Inner Senshi sat around and ate some cake. "After all," Kino Makoto said after swallowing, "this is cause for celebration!" 

Usagi finished her fifth piece of cake, and grabbed a sixth. Just before she started shoving it into her mouth, she said, "That's for sure! I'm so happy! Now I can goof off again!"

Aino Minako giggled. "Your teacher sure was surprised, Usagi! She looked like she'd seen someone walking over her grave! You should have seen it!"

Both Mizuno Ami and Usagi developed large sweat drops. "Uh, I _did see it, Minako," Usagi said._

Minako blinked. "Oh, yeah. I forgot."

Ami shook her head and said, "Minako, do you mean she looked like she'd seen a ghost? Or that she felt like someone was walking over her grave? Either way, I don't think those really describe her reaction. She was just surprised." Ami took a sip of milk and said, "By the way, Mako-chan, how'd you know Usagi would pass the exams?" She indicated the cake, which at one point had been covered with Kanji made of icing that read, "Congratulations, Usagi! You passed!"

Makoto shrugged. "I didn't. I put the icing on five minutes before we got here." 

Usagi sweat dropped again. Then she looked over at Rei and called out to her, "Rei, don't you want some cake? It's almost all gone!"

Rei suddenly slammed down the answer sheet and leapt at Usagi, grabbing her by the front of her shirt. "WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH USAGI?!"

"EEEK!" Usagi shrieked. "Rei's gone crazy!"

"REI! CALM DOWN!" Makoto yelled, and leapt to try and pull Rei off of Usagi. As soon as Makoto touched her, though, Rei let go of Usagi and burst out laughing. Minako and Makoto blinked and then started laughing too, and even Ami allowed herself a chuckle. 

When Rei's giggling had subsided, Usagi glared at her and said, "Not funny, Rei. I don't _always fail my tests! And we studied lots for this one." The last was said with a bit of a whine._

"You always fail the big ones!" Rei retorted, still with a bit of a smile.

"I DO NOT- er, well, actually, I guess I do." Usagi looked sheepish. "But I don't fail all the _important big ones."_

Makoto grinned and grabbed Usagi's graded answer sheet. "And this proves it!"

"Fine," Rei said mock-grudgingly. "You did good, Usagi."

Usagi flashed her friend her best genuine smile. "Thanks Rei. That means a lot."

"Of course, getting in was the easy part. Now you have to study even harder to get _through high school!" Rei said triumphantly._

Usagi developed a really big sweat drop.

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

The cry echoed through the Juuban district of Tokyo.

4 

Umino Gurio slowly and carefully removed his treasure from the triple layers of paper that it had been wrapped in by the owner of Nerima Used Books (a store which strangely seemed to be connected to a ramen restaurant). The owner had been a shriveled old lady who hopped around on a walking stick, and he'd been rather surprised (and not a little worried) at the speed she'd wrapped the ancient book, especially considering she hadn't even looked strong enough to lift it. 

The book was in Latin; the store keeper hadn't even been able to read it. He had gathered she was Chinese, though she had spoken excellent Japanese, and hadn't been surprised that she didn't know Latin. However, Umino was very well versed in Latin (as well as English, German, Mandarin Chinese, and Arabic), and had been very excited by his find. "_De Vermis Mysteriis," he breathed, a little in awe. _

The store keeper had seemed pretty happy to get rid of it. This made a certain amount of sense, since this book was reputed to be a curséd tome containing horrific arcane secrets able to drive the steadiest of minds insane. Umino wasn't really surprised that the old Chinese store keeper had been eager to sell it; anything to get it out of her store.

Umino laughed a little. He was excited to see what _De Vermis Mysteriis actually had in it. He really wasn't too worried; after all, there was no such thing as magic. Except for the Sailor Senshi and all the monster things they fought, but they didn't count. _

With another chuckle, Umino settled down to read.

5

Usagi stared up at her (quite literally) brand new school. Seele-Gehirn-Nerv (SGN) High School had been built over the summer on massive grants from a very rich German expatriate who seemed to care very much for the education of his new homeland's youth. He had also provided for the acquisition of the very best teachers in the nation. Usagi's parents had been ecstatic that their daughter had gotten into such a good high school. Usagi herself wasn't quite sure how it had happened. 

"Quite the place, huh?" Rei said to her left.

"Yeah, it's- Rei? What are you doing here?"

"This place is so highly rated my parents were actually okay with me leaving my private school."

"Mine too," Minako said from her right.

Usagi jumped, startled, and glared at her friend. "_Mina-chan! Don't __do that!" _

"Do what?" Minako asked innocently. 

"Hey, guys, what are you doing here?" Mako-chan said as she and Ami walked up. Rei and Minako repeated their explanations.

Ami smiled radiantly. She was clearly excited. "That's fantastic. Some of the best teachers in Japan are going to be teaching us!"

"Huh," Minako grunted as her attention was caught by one of the many groups of boys walking by.

"Yeah! There are all sorts of wonderful people." Ami started listing them enthusiastically, ticking them off on her fingers. "There is Professor Habuki Washu, the world famous physics _and chemistry Nobel prize winner, Doctor Akagi Ritsuko, an award winning lecturer and writer on biochemistry, medicine, and computer science, Makibi Kiyone, a forensic scientist who has worked with dozens of investigative organizations around the world..."_

Makoto and Rei had now joined Minako in drooling over all the hot boys entering the school. Usagi wasn't worrying about the boys, having her relationship with Mamoru, but she was gazing with awe at some of the older girls heading towards the school. "They're so gorgeous..." she whispered enviously.

Ami blinked and looked at her friends, none of whom were paying attention to her. Loudly, she said, "There's always Jurai Tsunami Sasami, the Emperor's personal chief, teaching Home-Ec..."

That got Mako's attention. "Omigod, are you serious. Jurai Tsunami? _The Jurai Tsunami? She's the best cook ever! I've got to go sign up for Home-Ec!" she cried, and ran towards the councilor's office. _

Ami smiled, and said, "There is also the art teacher, one Takeuchi Naoko, the main artist for the Sailor V manga..."

Minako didn't even stay long enough to say anything. She was quickly gaining on Makoto.

Ami definitely had Rei and Usagi's attention. She was grinning now, and said, "There is even Katsuragi Misato, the best-selling historian of religion and war."

Rei blinked. "YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS AND DIDN'T TELL ME? YOU KNOW I'VE READ ALL HER BOOKS!" With that, she was off after the other two. 

Usagi looked hopeful. "Any special teacher for me?" 

Ami looked at her a little surprised. "Well, I had rather thought Takeuchi-sama would have gotten you as excited as Mina-chan."

Usagi looked embarrassed. "Well, yeah, I'd love to meet her, but I'm such a horrible artist I couldn't be in her class. Minako's probably good enough, but I don't think I am."

Ami shrugged. "I'm sorry. I'm sure you'll find a teacher here you can look up to. They have the very best in Japan—even the world!—here." 

Usagi sighed. "That's good. I'll probably need them." She looked up at the school. "I'm worried, Ami. I don't know if I can handle such a prestigious place."

Ami smiled at her friend. "Usagi, I truly believe going to this school is the first step in your gaining the grace, poise, and experience that Neo-Queen Serenity will end up having. You'll do fine, and I'll help you as much as I can."

Ami kind words made Usagi feel warm and fuzzy inside. "Thanks, Ami. I'm glad you believe in me."

The two friends hugged, and Ami whispered, "Always, Sailor Moon. Always."

6

Umino was startled out of his reading by a scream out in his yard. He was instantly up and heading for the door, because he knew that voice; it was his girlfriend, Osaka Naru.

Just as he reached the door, Naru burst in, her expression half way between being ready to cry and ready to yell at someone.

Yelling won out, even as she threw her arms around him. "Gurio-chan, there are _maggots all over your yard! What have you been doing?!"_

Umino blinked and looked out at his yard. When he saw the writhing white piles of maggots, he blanched. Sure, he liked bugs, but this was a little much, even for him. "I have no idea, Naru-chan. I haven't been doing anything with maggots. They aren't even very interesting."

"They're _gross is what they are. You pick me up at my house tomorrow morning. I don't want to come back here until you get rid of those things!"_

Umino smiled at her as she gave him an upset look. "No problem, Naru-chan. Whatever you want."

She gave him her most serious glare. "And don't you dare experiment on them."

Umino looked sheepish, scratched the back of his head, and grinned ingratiatingly. "I wouldn't have dreamed of it."

Naru looked at him through narrowed eyes, then laughed. "Of course you wouldn't have. Come on, _Usagi's probably beat us to school by now." He grabbed his briefcase, she took his hand, and they headed off to school. Naru did, however, walk very quickly down Umino's front walk. _

Back on Umino's kitchen table, the open pages of _De Vermis Mysteriis rustled slightly. Slowly, a twitching white grub writhed out from between the pages. _

7

Ami was excited. Her very first class was Physics, with Professor Habuki Washu. The woman was an absolute genius. Word had it she was humorous and witty, too. Ami had her briefcase open and her brand new Pentium 4 laptop on her desk, ready to take notes. The students around her talked and goofed around, as usual, not realizing how lucky they were to be in this class. Except for Umino. He seemed as fully prepared as she was, right down to _his new laptop. _

Minako, on the other hand, was dreamily watching one of the boys in the class. He was a major cutie, and had his shining brown hair in a long braid down his back. He was chatting with two other guys, one real big, wearing black and purple warm ups, and another, a red head with poofy hair in an unbuttoned white shirt and glasses. The kid with glasses was only half paying attention to the conversation, it seemed, because he was busily recording everything in sight with a video camera. 

Ami started to feel nervous when the bell rang and the teacher hadn't arrived. She glanced over at the door in time to see two young girls walk through the door, and blinked in surprise. One had an incredibly massive, spiky pinkish red hairdo, while the other's hair was silver gray and in two pony tails that stuck out from the side of her head, a little like Chibi-Usa's. _They look about twelve. I wonder what they're doing here, she thought._

Minako jumped and let out a small scream when a voice directly over her shoulder said, "Cute, aren't they?"

Turning to the speaker, she found a smiling red headed girl standing in front of her desk. Behind the red head, a silver haired girl stood expressionlessly, her hands clasped behind her back and her large yellow eyes carefully watching everything that went on in the class. 

"Uh, er, yeah, they are. Especially the one with the braid." She blinked, then said, "Uh, hi. I'm-"

"Aino Minako, yeah, I know."

Minako blinked again, and said, "Oh. Okay. Who're you?"

The girl grinned and said, "You can call me Washu-chan!"

Minako blinked yet a third time. "Okay. Are you Habuki-sensei's daughter?"

The silver haired girl rolled her eyes and muttered, "Baka."

Washu-chan continued smiling. In a purposefully loud voice, she said, "No, I _am Habuki-sensei, but I'd really prefer to be called Washu-chan!"_

The class was suddenly quiet, as everyone turned and stared at the red headed girl. Ami stared in shock. This was the famous Professor Washu?

"Yes, I am the famous Professor Washu, in case you're wondering. If anyone makes a crack about my incredibly cute, childlike appearance, they'll have an extra three-thousand word report on quantum mechanics."

Just then, the assistant principle, an elderly man called Professor Fuyutsuki Kouzou who had spoken to them during orientation, walked in and said to the redhead, "Ah, Washu-sa—er, chan, how is the class? Everyone behaving, I presume." He gave both the professor and the class a grandfatherly smile. 

His question cinched it for the class, and everyone's attention was definitely on the redheaded gi- er, woman—now. She replied to the principal, "Just fine, Professor, we're just getting acquainted. I'm looking forward to teaching this class. I understand I have some very bright pupils in here." As she said this, her eyes flashed from Ami to Umino to the boy with the camera to Minako, and on to others. Ami caught the meaningful look, realized that she'd been the first given that look, and blushed self-consciously. 

Fuyutsuki nodded. "Excellent. Well, I have plenty of classes to check on. I'll leave you to your students." With that, he left.

Washu turned back to the class, and said, "Well, as it has been made abundantly clear by now, I will be teaching this class. It will not be an easy course, and I will expect everyone's best effort." There were a couple of stifled groans, one of which would have been Minako's if Washu hadn't been standing right in front of her. "However, you will be glad to know that I am not particularly fond of homework, so I will not give a lot if I believe that everyone understands the concepts and is doing their best." With this, there was a scattering of cheers. "I thought you'd like that. Finally, Ruri Ruri-chan, here," she nodded to the silver haired girl, "will be my teaching assistant for the Physics class."

The silver haired girl looked at Washu out of the corner of her eyes and said, "Please just call me Ruri, Professor."

"Of course, Ruri Ruri-chan. Now, does anyone have any questions?"

Ruri sighed. "Baka."

Umino raised his hand. "Yes, Professor Habuki-sensei, what will we be covering in this course?"

Washu pushed a button on her desk and a large tanuki statue fell on Umino's head and stuck, shaking him up quite a bit. "Again, please call me Washu-chan. To answer your question, we will be covering basic concepts such as velocity, momentum, force, acceleration, conservation of mass, trigonometry as it applies to movement, electromagnetism..."

Ami sat back and listened happily to the Professor go on as the other student's eyes began bugging out of their heads. Yes, she was definitely going to enjoy this class.

8

All around the world, it began. Their sense of timing was most peculiar, though few would ever realize this. 

Of the coast of Okinawa, deep under the shining blue waves of the Pacific, croaking voices that hadn't been human for a long, long time began the chant. "_Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.__ CTHULHU FHTAGN!" _ They were soon echoed by voices, human and less so, under the Atlantic near Innsmouth, Massachusetts, on strange and forgotten islands far in the south Pacific, in hidden, frozen caves of Greenland, and a hundred other secluded places around the globe.

Deep in the shrouded Severn Valley of England, a different cry went up from voices that were human, more or less. "Iä Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Ai Ai Ai!" This one also rose from the backwaters of Massachusetts and in the empty plains of Nevada and Arizona.

In the deepest recesses of hidden caverns, so black that the darkness was palpable, slitherings and slatherings could have been heard, along with strange, high pitched sounds that at times resembled the discordant notes of decaying chimes. This all occurred among massive stone monuments that, had there been light, would have resembled nothing any sane person would ever want to see.

In ancient, primeval forest of northern Wisconson, a solitary figure chanted in front of a mysterious rock formation that resembled nothing so much as a mass of gigantic bubbles. "Yog-Sothoth is the gate, Yog-Sothoth is the key..."

And high in one of the shining glass towers of Tokyo, a strange silver whistle began to blow, and another chant rose. "You Who Must Not Be Named, our Master, our Savior, send us your Servants, send us the Children of Aldebaran!"

9

When the girls (including Naru) and Umino met for lunch after third period, they had much to discuss. 

"Wow, Jurai-sensei is so great!" Makoto exclaimed as soon as they were assembled. "She was so nice, and she really seems to want to pass on her skills! And she _complimented_ me on my okonomiyaki!" 

"And she was _so_ beautiful," Usagi chimed in wistfully. "I wish I could be like her."

"I don't know who was more fantastic," Ami bubbled, "Akagi-sensei or Washu-chan!"

Rei blinked at her in confusion. "Washu-chan?"

Ami blushed, realizing her error. "Habuki-sensei, for my physics class. She insists on being called Washu-chan."

Rei shook her head. "Weird." 

Naru asked, "How was biology? You all had it, right?"

Umino nodded. "Akagi-sensei is very intelligent. She has a triple PhD in computer science, biology and genetics, and is a licensed Medical Doctor besides!"

"I understood all the stuff she was talking about!" Usagi said.

Everyone blinked in surprise. "Really, Usagi-chan?" "That's great!" "Congratulations!" "Good for you!"

Usagi clapped her hands over her ears. "Augh! Stop all talking at once!" 

They all stopped, then sheepishly scratched the backs of their heads.

Umino was watching some of the people walking by and noticed the boy he had sat next to in Computer Science. The kid was an American exchange student, and Umino had found him really interesting, since he didn't have a problem understanding the boy's English. He called out to him. "Hi, Caduceus-kun! How are you?"

The boy stopped and looked around, apparently looking for who had called his name. By the time he saw Umino, all the girls were looking at him. He blinked and paled. He was clearly nervous as he made his over to where he could talk to Umino without having to yell.

The girls studied him as he made his way over. He was almost, but not quite, as tall as Makoto. He seemed trim and in shape, though his shoulders were narrow, and he the school uniform looked a little silly on him, as if he should have been wearing something else. He had brown hair, and wore glasses, but they were thin ovals, unlike Umino's, and made him look sophisticated, not nerdy.

His conversation was hardly sophisticated, though. "Er, hello, Umino-san," he said to Umino. He directed an unsure, "Uh... Hello..." towards the girls, and several had to hide smiles. He continued with, "I'm doing well, I think..." After trailing off, he stood looking uncertain for a moment.

"You enjoyed your classes so far?" Umino asked.

The boy seemed to think for a moment, then laughed and said, "Yes, what I understand. Everyone speaks much more quickly here than we did in my Japanese courses back home. I hope I don't accidentally say something stupid because I don't know what someone said to me."

Ami smiled and said in English, "You're doing very well." 

He looked surprised and happy, then replied in English, "You speak English? I know Umino here does, but every other time I've spoken English today, everyone around seemed clueless!" He noticed that Makoto, Rei, and Usagi (not that he knew their names) all looked pretty clueless after he said that. 

Minako did too, and said (also in English), "Well, you've found a couple more who won't be, but we should probably speak Japanese while we're hanging out with these dorks." Then, switching to Japanese, she said, "I'm Aino Minako. You know Umino, this is his girlfriend Osaka Naru, this is Mizuno Ami, that's Hino Rei with the dark hair, odango-atama there is Tsukino Usagi, and the tall girl is Kino Makato," motioning to each as she named them.

The boy stared at Minoko for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm Iain Caduceus," he said, smiling hesitantly at them. Then he paused. "I mean Caduceus Iain." Switching to English, he muttered, "Is that right?" Then, back in Japanese, "Er, my family name is Caduceus and my given name is Iain. Okay?"

They all laughed, and he blushed. "Um, it was nice to meet you all. I need to go find my next class, I think."

They all replied pleasantly and politely, and he made his way back toward the school. As he walked off, he pulled an English-Japanese dictionary out of his pocket and muttered in English, "I thought Usagi was the word for rabbit..."

When Minako, Ami, Umino, and Naru broke up in laughter, Usagi cried, "What? What'd he say about me? Come on, stop laughing!"

10

The five undercover senshi and Naru filed into the English Literature class, and took surprised glances at the teacher's desk. The teacher (who was the only one Ami hadn't known who was) was already sitting there, apparently making some last minute notes. Ami hadn't known who he was because he was quite clearly an American.

Eventually, the bell rang for class to start, and the teacher slowly pushed himself to his feet. He seemed to be a rather frail man, not much taller than Usagi, and very thin and pale. He also seemed to be very nervous, as if he expected something unpleasant to appear at any second. The class quieted as he began speaking in excellent Japanese. "Hello, class. My name, in the English order with given name first, is Randolf Carter. Since this class is English as well as Literature, I will expect everyone to call me Mr. Carter. Not Carter-sensei, not Carter-sama, not Carter-san, but Mr. Carter."

He paused, and they nodded. He then smiled and continued. "However, I hope to make this an interesting class. I know many of you still have problems speaking English, which of course makes reading English literature a chore, not a pleasure. However, I believe I have some strategies that may help. Half of you had significant problems with English in middle school, I know, because I requested all the grades of the students I'd be teaching, and set up the classes so that half of each class would be composed of students who did well in English, and half would be students who didn't. I intend to partner you all up. One will be a student who doesn't do well, and one will be a student who does."

Some of the students who knew they were good students groaned. Carter smiled and said, "I know none of you are particularly eager to either tutor or be tutored by your classmates, but I believe this method will help both parties. It has been proven that the best way to learn something is to teach it, and I hope this will be the case for the tutors. Now, here is the partner list." With that, he clicked on the overhead projector.

Our heroes stared. By some frightening coincidence, Naru had been paired with Usagi, Ami with Makoto, and Minako with Rei. Minako said it for them all when she whispered to Makoto, "Scary."

The class went very pleasantly as Mr. Carter eased them into it slowly, letting them tell a little about themselves in Japanese and then helping them to translate it into English afterwards. However, as Usagi trailed after her friends after the class was let out, she noticed how frightened Mr. Carter's eyes seemed as he gazed out the window of the class.

11

"Our first day in 11th Grade is over, Haruka," Kaiou Michiru said as she stretched her arms high over her head, eliciting a slight flush and a smirk from her lover.

"Yep, and we didn't see any of the Inners even once. Kind of a shame, really; I rather wanted to talk to Odango-atama." Ten'ou Haruku replied.

Michiru laughed. "The only thing you wanted to do was freak her out by hitting on her again. I know you. You really shouldn't tease the kids so much."

Haruka laughed an infectious laugh, which Michiru couldn't help joining. After they calmed themselves a bit, Haruka wiped at the corner of her eye, and said, "I know, but it's just so funny." She laughed again, and said, "Life is just so much better since Sailor Moon kicked Pharaoh 90's ass. Everything just seems so _perfect!" To Michiru's shock, Haruka suddenly grabbed her and kissed her right on the lips, before letting her go and waving to a couple of staring passersby. _

Michiru shook her head with mock anger and smacked Haruka upside the head. "Come on, Perfect-san. We need to be going. Setsuna's expecting us." With that, she started walking ahead.

Haruka rubbed her head and made a face at her lover, then followed.

12

Umino grinned like a maniac as he made his way home after dropping Naru off at her house, one peck on the cheek closer to getting laid. Not that Umino thought along those lines, being a hopeless computer nerd with no sex drive, but that isn't his fault, now, is it? 

At any rate, Umino was pretty happy as he approached his house, when, to his surprise and excitement, he saw a large garter snake slithering down the street towards him. "Wow!" he muttered to himself. "I wonder what a snake is doing in the middle of a Tokyo street. I better hurry home and see if I can get back and catch it!" Umino broke into what was, for him, a fast run, and quickly reached his yard. At which point he came to a screeching halt and stared in shock.

Not only was the grass buried under a squirming carpet of maggots, dozens of snakes were burrowing in and out of the mass. There were several large holes in the layers of grubs, two or three feet in diameter, which seemed to lead down into darkness and had a constant light rain of maggots falling into them. The little worms were spilling onto the raised concrete walkway, and there was a thin layer on the sides of the house up at least a foot. 

Umino felt distinctly sick, and decided something had to be done quickly. He gingerly made his way to his front door, and rushed up to his lab to concoct something that would deal with the bizarre infestation of vermin.

A few moments after Umino disappeared into the house, another hole suddenly materialized in the lawn, causing the premature disappearance of hundreds of writing larvae. Almost immediately, something long, thick, grayish, and segmented emerged out of it, slithered wetly through the maggots, and dove again, leaving yet another hole as its tail disappeared from sight.

13

C-kun: [walks out onto an empty stage and faces the audience, smiling] Hello, gentle readers. I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce myself. I am, as you might surmise, the author of this story. I really don't have that much to say here, since most of what I want to say to you all will be in the author's notes at the end. However, there is a certain reason that I decided to have this little intermission here. As you've probably guessed by now, this story falls partially into the genre of horror, and thirteen is a very special number in the world of superstition and evil. To tell you more, I present to you a very special guest, Chibi-Cultist Ayanami Rei from the incredible Neon Genesis Evangelion fan fiction epic Children of an Elder God, by Rod M. and John Biles!

[Chibi-cultist Ayanami Rei walks out. She is only inches tall, and a larger image of her is projected against the wall behind her. She is a typical Chibi-version of Ayanami Rei, except for bizarre black robes, brightly glowing red eyes, and a tiny book in her hands that looks suspiciously like a miniature version of _De Vermis Mysteriis.]_

Chibi-cultist Rei: [shouting (very loudly for an inch tall girl)] _Iä Iä_! CTHULHU FHTAGN! PH'NGLUI MGLW'NAFH CTHULHU R'LYEH WGAH'NNAGL FHTAGN!

[Silence]

Chibi-cultist Rei: CTHULHU FHTAGN, YOU STUPID F---S! DO YOU HEAR ME? CTHULHU F---ING FHTAGN! RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, FOR THE LOVE OF-!

[A very long cane pops out from offstage and hooks Chibi-cultest Rei, dragging her off the stage kicking and screaming, leaving nothing but her tiny book behind.]

C-kun: [sweatdrops] Uh, sorry 'bout that. I think ol' Cthulhu must be a little more Fhtagn than usual today. Or maybe a little less. Something like that. [kneels down and picks up the book, which immediately turns into maggots, causing him to jump like he'd been bit on the- uh, you know.] Gross. Anyway, basically, I just want this story to go well, so I'm not going to risk having a regular scene 13, since 13 is an unlucky number. That's why I invited Chibi-cultest Rei to talk to you all. Unfortunately, [he looks at the maggots with distaste] that didn't go too well. Anyway, I think I'll let you get back to the story, now. Happy reading! [walks off, and the audience hears slightly demented laughter and a lot of screaming about Cthulhu off stage.]

14

Chiba Mamoru whistled a little tune as he approached that infamous corner where he'd collided with Usagi so many times before they had discovered their destiny. He chuckled a little as he thought about it. _Those days seemed to last forever,_ he thought. _I still sometimes expect to_- "Oof! He slammed square into someone as he rounded the corner, and fell to his butt.

He rubbed his head, and looked up to find the boy he'd hit shaking his. The boy was smaller than he was, though significantly larger than most kids his age, which looked to be around sixteen—Usagi's age. Looking up at Mamoru, the kid suddenly turned incredibly pale. "Chris?" he whispered. 

Mamoru blinked in surprise, and said, "No. I'm Chiba Mamoru. Who's Chris?"

The boy started guiltily and shook his head. "Sorry, I'm very sorry. You just reminded me of an old friend of mine." They both got to their feet, and the boy continued, "But you're a lot bigger than him, and your eyes are the wrong color. He had these weird gray-green eyes, and yours are dark blue." He shook his head again, as if trying to get some image he didn't like out of it.

Mamoru laughed, and said, "You didn't look happy to see him when you said his name."

The boy's expression suddenly went blank as he said, "You wouldn't be too happy to see someone that was murdered before you eyes either, especially when you were too scared to help."

"Oh." Mamoru was sorry he'd asked. "Uh, well, what's your name? You aren't from Japan, are you?"

The boy drawled, "It shows, does it?" Then he smiled a sardonic smile. "I'm Caduceus Iain. I came to Japan to find some peace of mind and forget about everything that's wrong with my life, and instead I keep meeting people who look like my dead friends."

Mamoru raised an eyebrow. "Keep? Who else have you met?" 

Iain shook his head. "A girl named Aino Minako in my Biology class looks just like Chris's girlfriend, Megan."

Mamoru laughed in spite of himself, and murmured, "Won't Usako be jealous..."

Iain blinked. "What?"

Mamoru laughed again. "Sorry, just thinking out loud. My girlfriend is Minako's friend Usagi. She'll undoubtedly be irritated to hear that Mina-chan looks like your friend's girlfriend, not her."

Iain shrugged. "Oh." He paused for a moment. "You're a senior than?" 

Mamoru shook his head. "No, sophomore in college." He wasn't surprised by the look he received, and said, "I only just turned twenty, and she's been sixteen for a while. I'm not _that _much older than her. Besides, it's a long story."

Iain looked dubious for another moment, then suddenly laughed and said, "Well, if you're anything at all like Chris, it would rather have to be." He bowed formally, and said, "It's been a pleasure to meet you, Mamoru-san."

Mamoru returned the gesture, and said, "No, the pleasure has been all mine, Iain-san. I'd like to hear more about America from you. Where are you staying?"

Iain looked embarrassed. "Actually, I'm at a hotel where until the people in charge of exchange students find me somewhere to live."

"Really? I know a couple of places you might be welcome."

Iain blinked again. "Uh, thank you. You really don't need to trouble yourself-"

"No, no, it's no trouble at all? How does staying at a Shinto temple sound to you?"

"Uh, I had a friend who studied Shinto once."

Mamoru raised an eyebrow. "In America?"

"She lived in Japan for a long time as a child."

"Ah. Whatever happened to her?"

"She's dead."

Mamoru winced. "Oh. Sorry." He paused, and then, even though he knew he shouldn't, "Is everyone you knew dead?"

Iain gave Mamoru a sharp look through narrowed eyes. "The Stars are Right, Mamoru-san. You'd do best to remember that."

Mamoru stared back in confusion, but then Iain smiled, and said, "Sorry. Let's go see this temple of yours, if you're willing."

"Uh, sure." Mamoru lead the way, wondering about the strange answer, but deciding not to be rude by pushing.

15

"The Thane of Fife/ had a wife," Haruka muttered to herself, then smacked herself in the head. "I hate Shakespeare."

Machiru grinned at her. "Ah, what's wrong, Haruka. Too difficult to actually learn something for once?"

"Hmmph."

"Well, you didn't have to take the Shakespeare course, just 'cause I wanted to."

"Hmmph."

Michiru laughed, and then sang out in the eeriest voice she could force through her vocal chords, "Haaaarruuuuuka! Beeewaaare the Ides of Maaarch!" 

Haruka punched her gently on the arm. "Cut it out, Michiru."

They had almost reached Setsuna's house, which was a little past Hiwaka Temple, and were walking through the nice residential neighborhood it was in. To their surprise, a block ahead of them, Mamoru and a boy they didn't recognize walked out from a side street. Haruka looked at Michiru and asked, "Should we bug him?"

Michiru shrugged. Haruka smiled. Then she increased her pace, all the while being as quiet as possible. When she was only a few feet behind the unsuspecting pair of men, she crouched down, launched herself forward, and in a frighteningly good impression of Usagi, cried, "Mamo-chan!" as she threw her arms around Mamoru's waisted. It was all Michiru could do to keep from collapsing from laughter.

Mamoru jumped about a foot and snapped, "Usako! Don't do that!" Then he blinked as he reached back and felt the short hair of the girl who was clinging to his waist. He slowly looked around and found Haruka grinning up at him.

"For the love of the kamis, Haruka!" he shouted, jumping out of her grip. "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

Haruka could barely stay on her feet from laughing, and a few feet behind her Michiru was having a hard time not chuckling as Mamoru glared at them both. Iain was standing back watching the display a little nervously. 

As she calmed down, Haruka straightened up and said, "Oh, the expression on your face, Mamoru. You should have seen it."

Iain was definitely a little confused. He looked a little closer at Haruka, and said, "How'd you get your voice to go so high, dude? I've not met many guys who could really sound like a girl like that."

Haruka was feeling saucy, and did something she really knew she shouldn't, and wouldn't have in any normal circumstances. But her good mood from the lack of enemies in the past few months, not to mention the endorphins currently filling her brain from laughing so much, seriously affected her judgment. She flashed poor Iain; he immediately passed out. 

Mamoru blinked a couple of times, and then sighed in irritation. "Good going, Haruka. Make the exchange student pass out, why don't you."

Haruka shrugged and grinned. "Oops." She looked down at him. "He'll be grateful. It doesn't look like he's seen much of that anyway."

Michiru smacked her on the back of the head. "You're acting weird, Haruka. Snap out of it. And you better not be going around flashing your breasts in the future, or I might have to get jealous."

Haruka winced, because when Michiru was upset with her, life wasn't too pleasant. "Sorry, Michiru-chan."

"You should be."

"Ladies..."

They turned their attention back to Mamoru, only to realize he seemed to be focusing on something behind them with a very worried look on his face. Hesitantly, they turned around. They didn't like what they saw. 

Before they even finished turning around, they noticed the unpleasant smell of ozone. The next thing they noticed was the creature's multifaceted, glowing red eyes that seemed to be glaring angrily at them. It hissed and bared its gleaming, steel-colored teeth. Other than the teeth, the head reminded them of both a vulture's and a preying mantis's at the same time. Its black skin seemed to be rotting and peeling away, revealing equally black overlapping ribs, along with other organs that just didn't look quite right. It had two hands, each with five fingers and two thumbs, all tipped with vicious, horny claws. Two long antennae swept back over the head. Its lower body was much like the lower body of a wasp, and was covered with long hairs. Finally, its bat-like wings were tattered and looked like they wouldn't work; clearly, they did somehow, as five more of the creatures seemed to be coming in for a landing behind the first. 

Mamoru glanced at Iain to make sure he was asleep, then reached under his jacket, pulled out a rose, and in moments was Tuxedo Kamen. He jumped over the two girls, placing himself between them and the creatures, and launched the rose at the first one. The steel-tipped rose of doom made a sound much like a bullet hitting an armored car as it ricocheted off the creature's chest and buried itself in the ground. It left behind a long stretch of tattered skin, and he realized that the ribs weren't really ribs at all; they were some sort of chitinous exoskeleton that just happened to have a layer of skin-like stuff over it. 

"NEPTUNE PLANET POWER, MAKE-UP!"

"URANUS PLANET POWER, MAKE-UP!"

The last of the creatures make a crash landing as the rest of them hid their eyes from the light shows that always accompanied a senshi's transformation. Tuxedo Kamen took the opportunity to launch another ineffectual rose. "What the heck are these things?" he asked himself.

"It really doesn't matter." Uranus said, coming up beside him. "WORLD SHAKING!" The great ball of golden-orange energy ripped up through the ground and slammed into the first creature, which looked very unhappy for the second or so before it exploded into grayish dust. 

As Neptune yelled, "NEPTUNE DEEP SUMERGE!" from his other side, Tuxedo Kamen launched two more roses at the second and third from the front. Neptune's liquid energy hit the one in front, and in moments it melted into a blackish sludge. The first rose hit the second in the eye, causing it to cry out in pain (an incredibly disturbing sound, though the reasons for that feeling were hard to place), then to fall to the ground and, in a matter of mere moments, collapse into a small pile of the same blackish gray dust. The third creature snapped at its rose, but the rose flew right through its open mouth and buried itself in the back of the creature's throat, causing it to follow its companions into oblivion.

Despite the rapid destruction of the first four, the final two creatures didn't hesitate. They charged forward with frightening speed, slashing at Tuxedo Kamen and the senshi with their claws. Uranus and Neptune dodged out of the way, and Tuxedo Kamen tried to, but one of the monsters caught his cape, turning a goodly portion of the armored garment into red and black party streamers. Tuxedo Kamen decided it probably wouldn't be a good idea to be caught by those claws. 

Within seconds, the last two creatures were destroyed as Uranus and Neptune once again called upon their powers. The two senshi and the top-hatted warrior all paused to catch their breath.

"Any more?" Neptune asked? 

Tuxedo Kamen and Uranus immediately started scouting (no pun intended) the immediate area, but were soon back. "It's clear," Uranus said. Neptune nodded and they all changed back to normal. 

And not a minute too soon. Behind them, Iain groaned and sat up. "What the heck just-" He saw Haruka, and blushed. "Oh, yeah. Uh, I think I'll just be quiet."

Haruka, who was feeling much more normal (for her) again, smiled ruefully at him and said, "Sorry about that. I was in a weird mood." She walked over and offered him a hand up. He stared at her for a moment, and then took it and she pulled him to his feet. 

He looked at her for a moment, and showing that he was still a little out of sorts, said, "You know, now that I know you're a girl, you're pretty hot."

Haruka blinked in surprise, and Michiru took the opportunity to slip her arm around the boyish girl's waist and say, "I rather think so too."

This time Iain blinked, then turned quickly to Mamoru and said, "Riiiight. I think I'm just going to just stop talking to people altogether."

All three of the older students laughed, and after a moment, Iain sheepishly joined in. They soon decided that they all needed to get where they had been going going.

16

Rei sometimes felt like she spent more time sweeping the temple walkways than almost anything else. She was, at the moment, very irritated by that fact, even as she was engaged in the very chore. So she was very relieved to here a voice call, "Rei-chan!"

She looked up eagerly, and was surprised to see Mamoru and the exchange student. _Uh-oh, what was his name? Iain? I hope so. She smiled pleasantly as they walked up. "Mamoru-kun, Iain-san, hi! What are you guys doing here?" __For that matter, what are they doing together? I didn't know they knew each other._

Mamoru replied, "Well, we sort of bumped into each other and started talking, and during the conversation it came out that he is staying in a hotel until he can find somewhere more permanent to stay. I said Grandpa would probably let him stay here, and he thought it sounded like a good idea."

Rei eyed Iain dubiously. "Grandpa would be happy to have another disciple, but you realize you'll have to do a lot of chores, right?"

Iain shrugged. "That's fine. Anything would be better than staying in that hotel. It's really a dump." He smiled nervously at her. 

She shrugged. "Alright. I'll go get Grandpa."

Grandpa was, of course, delighted with the idea, and within an hour, it was all settled. In the meantime Mamoru decided not to worry the Inner Senshi with the attack of the bug critters. He was willing to hope it was an isolated incident.

17

"Byahkee," Setsuna whispered in horror. 

Michiru and Haruka blinked at each other. "What?" they replied simultaneously. 

The three Outer Scouts were sitting in Setsuna's massive private library, and now the green haired woman rose and moved rapidly to one of the most inaccessible bookshelves, where she quickly pulled down a book. Haruka caught a glimpse of its title before Setsuna put it down on they table they were sitting at: it looked like _The Book of Dyzan was written on the cover in English. _

Setsuna read for several minutes in silence, then closed the book and returned it to where she got it. She then returned and sat down. "Those creatures you fought are called Byahkee. They aren't incredibly dangerous, as you proved, but their presence is a sign of much greater danger. They are the servants of a creature... that exists on a planet that circles the star Aldebaran, in the city Carcosa, near the dread Lake of Hali-"

"You're quoting, aren't you, Setsuna?" Michiru asked with a raised eyebrow.

Setsuna had the decency to look embarrassed. "Yes. Well. At any rate, the Byahkee can't come to Earth on their own, for reasons I don't entirely understand. They must be summoned, by men who worship this creature."

Haruka blinked. "There are people who worship some weird alien that's on some other planet entirely outside the Solar System?"

Setsuna pursed her lips. "Think of them like the Death Busters. They were evil and alien from outside the Solar System, but they too had human servants, or at least servants who had once been human. The difference here is that the worshippers of... this creature are willing participants in this evil. This cult has existed for many, many years, despite my best efforts to destroy it."

The other two Outer Senshi blinked.

"Usually, though evil, the cells of this cult are harmless, because they don't have the information needed to summon the Byahkee or their master-"

"Whoa! Hold on their! They can summon the master too?" asked Michiru. 

Setsuna nodded slowly. "It has only happened once, during the fourth century A.D. in Eastern Europe, but it wasn't pretty. Luckily, it couldn't stay long, and I was able to mop up the remnants of the cult and destroy the information they used to summon it."

"Remnants?"

"This creature cares less for humanity then humanity does for ants. Merely seeing their 'master' drove the cultists over the edge of sanity. It casually wiped out most of them before it was forced to leave by the setting of Aldebaran."

"Does this thing have a name?"

Setsuna paused. "The cult worshipping it refers to it as He Who is Not to Be Named. I've never been willing to say its real name out loud."

Haruka and Michiru exchanged glances. Then Haruka looked back at Setsuna and said, "At any rate, all we have to do is wipe out the cult members? Who are human?"

Setsuna shook her head. "In the past, yes, that's what I would have done. Now we have the Aqua Mirror, which we should be able to use to wipe clean their memories, and then we can destroy all their information and trappings."

Haruka breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. "Okay. Destroying the cult won't be a problem, if that's what it comes down to."

"Of course not," Setsuna said, smiling slightly. "Don't tell the Inners. I don't think we'll need them. The magic these cultists use is different from anything else we've seen, but I've developed effective countermeasures over the years. We won't have a problem. Meet me here tomorrow; I'll use the Time Gate tonight to find out where they are."

Haruka and Michiru nodded, and the meeting was adjorned.

18

Umino stretched, yawned, looked out his bedroom window, and frowned. The chemicals he'd sprayed on the maggots the night before had done the trick; the maggots and snakes were all gone, but now his lawn was covered with a thick, whitish sludge that was the remains of melted maggots, and there were still those holes in the lawn. _It's a good thing my parents are gone for the month, he thought. __It is going to take some work to fix all that. It's really weird; I wonder what caused it all._

He showered and dressed, then headed downstairs for a quick breakfast before he went to pick up Naru, and then Usagi, who would probably revert to her usual pattern of being extremely late if they didn't pick her up. He entered the kitchen, then gasped and stopped cold.

_De Vermis Mysteriis was floating in mid air, giving off an eerie green glow. "Uh-oh," he whispered._

At that point, the book started changing. The leather binding peeled off, leaving behind another binding that looked disturbingly like... human skin. Then, that skin expanded and closed over the three sides of the book not covered by the binding, so that it looked like a box made of flesh. Finally, it started grow and shift, as first five little nubs of flesh popped out of it, then rapidly grew into arms, legs, and a head. The book-turned-simulacrum suddenly gave off a great pulse of green light, causing Umino to have to cover his eyes and blink away the after effects.

When he could see properly again, he was confronted with the grinning stereotype of an evil sorcerer. The man before him was wearing long black robes with silver moons and stars stitched on. He had long black hair and a close cut black goatee. Most disturbing, however, were the glowing green eyes that definitely had the glint of insanity in them. 

The man delightedly said something in a language Umino didn't understand, and then laughed an evil laugh. 

_This is almost corny, Umino thought as he opened his mouth to ask what the heck the man had just said. Then he stopped for a moment, decided he should probably ask in Latin, and said, "What the heck did you just say?"_

The man blinked at him, apparently realizing the boy was there for the first time. He replied, also in Latin, "I said that the Stars are Right, and Ludwig Prinn is returned. Is Latin being widely spoken again?"

Umino shook his head and said, "No, I've made a special study of it. Very few people in Japan speak Latin."

Prinn's eyebrows shot up. "So, I am in the Land of the Rising Sun... How interesting. Quickly boy, what year is it?"

Umino blinked, "Uh, 2002, A.D."

Prinn blinked again. "Many years I've been gone. Well, that fool Faust should be long gone by now. I think I will make this place my headquarters. They must have learned much in the time I've been gone. My knowledge will expand indefinately!"

Umino felt relieved. "So, you're not going to try to rule or destroy the world?"

"Why would I destroy the world? I need to live here too. Besides, the only way to do that would be to summon one of the Great Old Ones and give them free reign to wipe this world clean of life."

Umino breathed a sigh of relief. "That's a relief. I thought for a second you were some sort of evil sorcerer that terrorized the countryside and conducted horrible experiments and fiendish rituals on the innocent townsfolk."

Prinn straightened up indignantly. "I am certainly not evil! Who are you to criticize my activities? I am in search of knowledge beyond you're wildest dreams! I am certainly forgiven for a few disfiguring experiments and ritual sacrifices!"

"Oh, shit," was all Umino said before running. He almost thought he'd escape, when the floor underneath him exploded, throwing him back to Prinn's feet. 

Dazedly, Umino looked up. Slithering lazily toward him was a massive, segmented worm with a massive mouth containing multiple circles of teeth, like that of a lamprey. It wasn't very pretty. _Well, I know where those holes came from, he thought, just before passing out._

Ludwig Prinn smiled down at the poor boy. "I've had some splendid ideas over the centuries. I have a great experiment in mind, and you, my boy, are the perfect subject."

19

"...and he normally calls when he's sick. I'm almost tempted to head over to his house and see if he's okay. I hope he wasn't eaten by maggots or anything..." Naru said to Usagi, who was half falling asleep while she tried to mix the muffin batter. They were partners in Home Economics, and Naru would have been worrying about her grade if she hadn't been worrying about Umino. She and Makoto were just glad that Minako's parents were making her take Physics, because she'd wanted to take this, and that would have been the end of the world.

Usagi absentmindedly patted her hand. "Don't worry, Naru-chan. I'm sure he's fine. We'll go check on him as soon as school is over. We'll even bring along Rei and Ami and see if either of them can deal with the maggots." _Eww.__ Maggots..._

Naru impulsively gave Usagi a hug. "Thanks, Usagi. You're the best friend ever!"

Usagi fell asleep on Naru's shoulder, and a moment later the muffin batter was all over their shoes. Jurai-sensei was not please, even if she was nice about it.

20

Ami looked up in surprise as a hand knocked on he computer monitor. She was equally surprised to see Iain. "Er, hi, Ami-san. Sorry to bug you," he said, clearly nervous. "I was just wondering if you knew where Umino was. He was helping me with the instructions yesterday, but I'm lost now."

"Oh, I can help you. I'm all done, anyway."

Iain blinked in surprise. "Gee, that was fast."

Ami smiled and nodded, then walked over to the assistant instructor, a young woman with short brown hair named Ibuki Maya, and asked, "Ibuki-sempai, I'm going to help Caduceus-kun with reading his manual."

Maya smiled at her. "No problem, Ami-san. By the way, I've been meaning to tell you, I love your hair."

Ami beamed at the compliment. "Thank you, Sempai. Yours looks great too!"

Iain sighed and headed back to his station as they started talking about hair care. "Women are the same everywhere, it seems."

21

"He's moving in with you?" Ami asked Rei in surprise.

Rei shrugged. "Yup."

"Oooh, Rei-chan, are you excited? He's kinda cute, after all." This was Usagi, of course.

Rei gave that statement all that it deserved, which was a glare.

"He seems nice enough. I was helping him in Computer Science. He has a very nice computer, apparently," Ami said. "He talked about it a lot. I think he's kind of a computer nerd."

"I know he sings well," Rei responded with a shrug. Everyone stared at her. "What?" she said. "He's in my Choir class." The other girls nodded their understanding, and Rei continued. "So anyway, that's why I can't come. We need to go straight to his hotel and get his stuff."

"Come on, Rei! He's a guy! Surely he can't have so much stuff that he, Yuuichiro, and Grandpa can't handle it themselves," Usagi whined. 

Rei sighed. "I don't want Grandpa working too hard. He's getting old, and he hurt his back recently."

"Are you sure it couldn't wait a little while, Rei-chan?" Naru asked. "I was hoping you'd be able to put up a ward at Umino's house to get rid of those nasty maggots."

Rei shook her head. "I doubt it. Maggots aren't really evil. They just happen."

Naru shook her head. "Not like that, they don't. There was definitely something unnatural about it."

"Fine," Rei sighed. "I'll ask Caduceus-kun if he can wait at the temple for a while. Haruka and Michiru said they were going by again, so I'll get them to walk him their. And I'll call Grandpa."

Naru laughed delightedly. "Thank you so much, Rei-chan! I really appreciate it."

Ami picked at her lunch. _I could have gotten rid of the maggots too, she thought._

22

"He's a funny kid, alright," Haruka said, laughing, as they walked up the steps to Setsuna's house. They'd just dropped Iain off at the Hiwaka Temple. Uranus had been teasing him, and after some initial embarrassment, he started dishing it out as well as he received it. Michiru had thought the whole conversation had been hilarious.

"Are we ready?" came a voice from the doorway. They looked up to find themselves confronted with Sailor Pluto, Time Staff and all. Michiru and Haruka smiled, entered the house, and transformed.

"So where are we going?" Uranus asked once they were on their way.

"The cultists are the head of a small corporation known as KiY Inc.," Pluto responded. "They own a suite at the top of one of the skyscrapers in downtown Tokyo, where they conduct their services to He Who is Not to Be Named."

"And that's where we'll get them," Uranus grinned.

"Correct."

23

And so it was that six hot girls walked to the house of an acknowledged nerd after the second day of school. Don't all you nerds out their wish it would happen to you? Yeah, me too.

Minako and Makoto had decided they weren't about to be left behind since everyone else was going. Ami was still pouting, though everyone else just thought she was being her usual studious self. Rei was worrying about Grandpa and having _two guys around the temple all the time, while Naru was worrying about Umino. The other three were oblivious, talking and laughing as they walked through the streets of Tokyo. _

All this changed when they turned the corner onto Umino's street. They all stopped cold, then Usagi asked, "Uh, where's his house?"

"A giant maggot ate it," Ami deadpanned. 

Naru fainted. Makoto caught her, and the others looked at Ami. "What?" she asked defensively. "We needed to transform anyway. This is clearly a job for the Sailor Senshi." _Take that, is what she privately thought. Then, after making sure no one was around, she pulled out her transformation wand. _

"MERCURY STAR POWER, MAKE-UP!"

"MARS STAR POWER, MAKE-UP!"

"VENUS STAR POWER, MAKE-UP!"

"JUPITER STAR POWER, MAKE-UP!"

"MOON CRISIS MAKE-UP!"

After the obligatory light show, they all looked at Super Sailor Moon. She looked back, and said, "What?"

"Why'd you Crisis Make-up?" Venus asked curiously.

Moon looked disbelieving, and pointed at the gap where Umino's house used to be. "His _entire house is gone! Whatever did that has to be major trouble!"_

Ami did a scan with her computer, and said, "It's a simple magical illusion that we can walk right through. I don't recognize the magical system used to make the illusion, but that's not important..." The second sentence was more to herself then the other senshi.

Super Sailor Moon blinked and said, "Oh." She shifted back into normal Sailor Moon. "Well, isn't that kind of stupid? Unless Umino just learned magic and is goofing around, whoever did this is just calling attention to themselves by making a house disappear, right?"

Mars stared at Moon in shock. "She said something intelligent!" she whispered.

Jupiter waved a hand in front of Mars's face, got no response, and smacked her lightly upside her head. Mars blinked and said, "Sorry."

Moon glared at Mars and pulled out the Spiral Heart Moon Rod. "Come on, guys, lets go save Umino from whatever's made his house disappear."

When they stepped into the invisibility bubble, life got a lot less pleasant. A giant worm with a huge, sucker-like mouth and rows and rows of teeth immediately launched itself at them, and only two years of dodging monster attacks kept Sailor Moon from being eaten.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAH! IT'S GONNA EAT ME! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Sailor Moon screamed, causing everyone to stop and wince, including the lamprey-worm.

"SHUT-UP, SAILOR MOON!" Rei shouted, and then continued with, "BURNING MANDALA!"

The glowing rings of holy fire slammed into the worm almost at almost equal intervals along its length, blasting it into pieces and setting it aflame at the same time. Within moments, it was a blackened, crumbling husk of ash.

Rei blinked. "That was easy."

The others shrugged, when three more of the worms popped out of the hole-filled lawn. "Uh-oh," Rei said.

The other three senshi leaped into action. 

"VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN!"

"SHINE AQUA ILLUSION!"

"SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!"

The lamprey-worms, wherever they might have come from, were no match for the Scouts' attacks, and were quickly frozen, fried, and sliced apart (not respectively). Sailor Moon looked around nervously, and said, "Alright, let's go in before any more come."

Jupiter grinned evilly. "Allow me." She jumped up onto Umino's porch and knocked the door in with one powerful kick. 

A tall man with long black robes and hair and a black goatee looked up from doing something very unpleasant looking to... some vaguely humanoid thing wearing Umino's glasses. He said, in excellent Japanese, "It was unlocked, you know."

Jupiter was too horrified by the creature on the table to react in a properly humorous way. "What in the name of Serenity...?" she whispered.

The man looked down at the thing. "What, this?" He smiled proudly. "This is the first scientifically induced ghoul transformation ever accomplished! I solved the final key to the problem during my exile."

Sailor Moon was tearing up. "Umino...?" she whispered, reaching out hesitantly.

The man looked down. "I used the boy I found here when I was revived."

Mercury had been scanning with her computer, and now put it away. "It's Umino. Sailor Moon, if you hurry, you can heal him! Venus, Mars! He's made of tightly packed paper! He needs to be cut open and burnt!"

The man's eyebrows went up. "Sailor Moon...? The Sailor Scouts from the Moon Kingdom? I believed you to be myths of Atlantis!"

Sailor Moon was leaning over the Umino ghoul, looking for some sign of Umino in it. Suddenly, its eyes snapped open, and it reached up, grabbed her, and attempted to bite her neck. She screamed, of course, which made it quickly let go and cover its ears. "NOW, SAILOR MOON!" Mercury yelled. 

Three voices cried out at the same time:

"MOON HEALING ACTIVATION!"

"VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN!"

"BURNING MANDALA!"

The kitchen was filled with light, and after if cleared away, they found Umino, healed and unconscious, and the man, apparently unharmed. 

"That," he said grimly, "Was not very nice."

He raised his hands, started chanting, and drew a glowing red symbol in mid-air.

"Uh, Sailor Moon, now would be a good time to Crisis Make-up," Mercury said.

Moon glanced at Mercury, nodded, and cried, "CRISIS MAKE-UP!"

Within moments, Ludwig Prinn was faced with Super Sailor Moon. His chanting died away as he stared in awe. "That was the Holy Grail, wasn't it? She just used the power of the Holy-"

"RAINBOW MOON HEART ACHE!" 

"-Grail!"

The wave of rainbow light stripped away the unnaturally stolen skin, and then the heart covered ribbon slammed into the humanoid mass of paper left behind, causing an explosion of shredded paper to cover the room.

Outside, the invisibility bubble disappeared, and the lawn reverted back to normal. The remains of _De Vermis Mysteriis were scattered all over the kitchen, and Umino started waking up. _

"Wha happened?" he asked groggily.

Sailor Mercury leaned down and looked him in the eyes. "Umino," she said, "stay away from the occult books. They are _not safe."_

With that, the Sailor Senshi left, leaving Umino to remember what happened himself. It didn't take him long, and he decided he agreed with Mercury.

24

The raid went even better than they had hoped for. When they dropped down into the middle of the worshippers, all the attention of the clearly flabbergasted cultists turned to them. Neptune was able to easily wipe their memory and put them to sleep. Pluto and Uranus then methodically destroyed all the information the cultists had about their god with the Space Sword, Time Staff, and a couple of computer viruses. When the cultists came too, Pluto was there to very ominously warn them away from their previous interests, a warning which they took very seriously.

All in all, the day went well.

25

Iain Caduceus smiled as he looked around his new room in Hiwaka temple. He'd just finished getting his computer all hooked up. It was, as he was pleased to tell anyone he thought might have any interest whatsoever, an AMD Athlon XP 1.21 GHz with 512 Mgs of DDR RAM, 128 KB of L1 cache, 4 Mgs of L2 cache, an 80 Gig Hard drive, a Nvidia GeForce 3 3D accelerator, a 56K modem with a cell phone connector (and complimentary cell phone), and a 24/12/24/48 CD write/rewrite/DVD/read disk drive. (This is opposed to the computer this story has been written on, which is a piece of crap.)

He was pretty happy to be here. Everyone had been nice to him, except for Haruka-san teasing him, of course, but it was just teasing, and his classes all seemed cool. This was the perfect way to distance himself from all the horrible things that had happened to him back home. Who knows, maybe he'd hook up with one of those cute girls that hung out with Mamoru and Umino.

Iain glanced at the mirror on the closet door, shook his head, and thought, _Not__ likely._

26

"So, Miss Pluto, you think you've saved the world again, hmm? I'm afraid you're just a little late." The voice chuckled.

It came from a man standing on the top of the Tokyo Tower. He was dressed entirely in a yellow suit, and was wearing an eerie, pallid mask that seemed disturbingly life-like, and at the same time, not quite right. Only his eyes showed through, and somehow, they too were wrong.

The figure chuckled again, a sound no less eerie than the mask, for it was hollow, and not quite human seeming. Across the world, the disturbed and insane suddenly cried out with one voice, "ALL HAIL THE KING IN YELLOW! The Stranger in the Pallid Mask!"

The END

Author's Notes: [Puts down the duct tape and sticks the package addressed to John Biles and Rod M. into a conveniently situated mail box.] Yeah, that was a bad idea. Anyway, that is Episode 1 of Sailor Moon L. I hope no one was too offended. I originally intended to make it a complete one-shot, since I tend to have trouble finishing series, but I had to throw in a little foreshadowing, just in case people like this. 

The scene where Haruka complains about Shakespeare and Michiru tells her to "beware the Ides of March" (a quote from Julius Caesar) are in there because I am, in fact, in a Shakespeare class right now, and I wrote that scene on the Ides of March (March 15). I've always liked the Outer Scouts, so expect to see more of them. Also, I know Haruka may seem a little OOC when she flashed Iain, but I explained why she did that, and once I'd done it, I couldn't figure out another way to knock Iain out. Anyway, I wanted to do it.

I really don't have much else to say. If anyone has any questions, e-mail me at Caduceuskun@yahoo.com, and make sure to put Sailor Moon L in the subject, or I'll just delete it. Or, alternatively, you could just review the story. Anyway, I'm signing off.

Oh yeah, here's the Disclaimer: Sailor Moon is owned and copyrighted by Takeuchi Naoko, Pioneer, and a bunch of other people. Takeuchi Naoko owns herself. 

All other anime characters are owned by the owners of their respective shows.

I don't think _De Vermis Mysteriis, Ludwig Prinn, Randolf Carter, He Who is Not to Be Named, The King in Yellow, or Byahkee are copyrighted, but they are all from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. _

Chibi-cultist Ayanami Rei comes, somewhat indirectly, from Children of an Elder God, and therefore is owned by John Biles and Rod M., two fan fic writers I greatly admire, and who, to some extent, inspired this story. 

Everything mentioned above is used without permission. Rather than be sued, I will immediately take down this story and delete it off of my hard drive if asked to by any of the above entities, besides John and Rod. If John and Rod are upset by my mention of them or my use of something from their story, I will immediately remove scene 13 and any mention of them, if asked. 

I think this is the longest disclaimer I've ever seen. Before I forget, Iain Caduceus is MINE, and I'd like to kindly ask that no one use him without my permission. I'm going to go sleep now. 

This story is Copyright 2002 by C-kun and Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions.


	2. Who is HERZ? The King in Yellow, part 1

Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions 

Welcomes you to:

Sailor Moon L(ovecraft)

A Fusion with concepts from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.

Episode 2

Who is HERZ?

The King in Yellow, Part 1

Note: Understanding this story requires no prior knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft or any of his writings. It does, however require a fair bit of knowledge of the anime series Sailor Moon. Like you'd be here if you didn't already have that.

This story takes place after Sailor Moon S. It can be considered an alternate universe, since it takes the place of Sailor Moon Super S.

1

In a silent room, far underground, at the head of a massive oval oak table, there sat a man. He sat motionlessly, his elbows on the table, his white gloved hands clasped in front of the lower half of his face. The little light that there was in the room glinted ominously off of his tinted glasses. He was a thin man of indeterminate age, with well-groomed brown hair and a thin beard that ran from his sideburns down the edges of his chin. Other than the white gloves, his clothing was dark, though his jacket was open, revealing a red shirt underneath.

Behind the man was absolute darkness. He was facing the only opening in the room; the end of a spiral stair case, the stairs of which quickly disappeared around the corner. In the time taken to describe all this, though, the silence of the room was broken, as voices echoed down from far above. 

The voices grew closer, but they also grew softer. As they approached, the man continued his unmoving vigil. Hidden behind his clasped, gloved hands, however, a slight smirk played across his lips.

The approaching conversations stopped as if shut off by a switch when those speaking came into the man's view as they stepped around the final bend in the spiral stair case. Silently, figures descended the last few steps and headed towards their seats. Each nodded to the man at the head of the table as they came, and he returned each with an almost imperceptible nod of his own.

The first figure was a well built woman in her late twenties. She had long, luxuriant, purple hair, and wore a short black skirt and a dark v-neck blouse, with a red jacket over it. Around her neck, she wore a pair of necklaces. On one, there was a silver cross; on the other, there was a strange, star-shaped symbol with what seemed like both a flame and an eye in the center. It was difficult to tell what it was made of.

Behind her came two more women. One was a thin woman with shoulder-length bleached blonde hair, though it was difficult to tell it was bleached without looking closely. She wore a white lab coat with shorts and a t-shirt underneath. The other had short brown hair and an open, almost boyish look around her. She wore tan pants and a matching jacket.

They were followed by a thin, nervous seeming man. He was short, thin, and very pale, wearing slacks and a turtle-neck. The most noticeable thing about him was his eyes behind his spectacles; they were very, very afraid.

At a careful distance from him, as if protecting him, there followed a tall, thickly muscled man with lavender hair, parted in the middle. He was wearing a dark, tight t-shirt without the sleeves and loose cotton pants. A katana was strapped to his back.

Directly behind him was a woman with long teal hair, wearing a headband and dark, serviceable clothing- a turtleneck and jeans. She had a gun in a holster on her hip, and seemed to be carefully observing everything in sight.

For a moment, no more people appeared. Then two young girls and an old, though straight-backed man turned the corner. One girl, with the spiky red hair, and the grey haired man continued their conversation as they moved into view, while a yellow-eyed, silver haired girl beside them watched silently.

"...and Mizuno-san is doing even better than I expected. I think that someday, if we live that long, we may have to offer her a position, for she will have talents we can't afford to let go," the red-headed girl finished saying to the old man as she took the seat opposite the head of the table. 

The bleached blonde nodded. "I agree. She shows great promise in both of my classes, and seems to have an amazingly open mind, from what I know of her mother."

The man with the white gloves slowly unclasped his hands and laid them flat on the table. "That," he said, with only a hint of sarcasm, "is good to know. I see that Megumi isn't present?" It was, in fact, a question.

"She said she had something vital to attend to," the purple haired woman said dryly. 

"Hmmm," the man replied. "Very well. Fuyutsuki, shall we begin."

The old man smiled calmly. "Certainly, Chairman Ikari."

Ikari nodded back. "Very well. This meeting of HERZ is now in session."

2

"YOU DID WHAT?" Ms. Mizuno said in shock, staring at her daughter. Ami smiled nervously and ducked her head in respect to her mother.

She held the bird in her arms a little tighter, and she repeated, "I offered to take care of Katsuragi-sensei's pet penguin while she finds an apartment that will let her keep it. His name is Pen-pen, and he's very intelligent. He won't be any trouble." 

Behind her, Ami's friend Hino Rei and the American exchange student, Caduceus Iain, who was staying at her temple, spoke in unison: "I _can't __believe Grandpa wouldn't let us take care of him!" Rei wanted to take care of Pen-pen because she was a huge fan of her teacher, a renowned scholar of military and religious history. Iain wanted to take care of Pen-pen because he thought the penguin was totally cool._

Between the two, they supported a small box which proclaimed, "Amazing refrigerator in a 3X3X3 box! Put it together yourself, and it's the biggest one you've ever seen!" 

_With all the marvels of modern technology, you'd think they could find something more intelligent sounding to put on the box, Ms. Mizuno thought. Then she sighed and said, "Very well. Kasuragi-san seemed like a very together woman, and if she needs a little help, it is only fitting that her best student should do so."_

Ami beamed, while Rei and Iain glared daggers at Ms. Mizuno.

3

"I wish I had a beer," Katsuragi Misato said with a sigh as she slumped on the table.

Ikari gave her a cold look. "Must you say that at the beginning of _every meeting, Kasuragi-san?"_

"Yes."

He sighed. "Fine. How has your research been going?"

She instantly straightened up, suddenly all business. "Well, it would probably be better if anyone had ever fought a Great Old One and lived to tell the tale. As it is, it is pretty difficult to figure out strategies to use against them that will be effective, but I managing to make a fairly comprehensive history, without all the mumbo-jumbo and "The Great Old Ones are all mighty, all powerful, will rule the world, yadda-yadda-yadda, etcetera, etcetera," that every other maniac who's written about them included." She, like every other person in the room, had brought a brief case, and now she opened it and took out a number of thick packets of paper. 

After pausing for a moment to stare longingly at the beer which she did, in fact, have, but knew she couldn't drink during the meeting, she passed out the packets to those at the table. "These are the histories of Cthulhu from what I can get out of the traditional histories, and of Hastur. Hastur's is, unfortunately, incomplete, because my primary source, the data Maya-san and Ruri-chan were hacking from those idiot cultists at KiY Inc., disappeared right before their company went belly up and the executives all disappeared." She frowned at her packets, as if she could bring the data back with her glare. 

Chairman Ikari nodded. "Excellent. Everyone, make sure you read these."

"Definitely," the bleached blonde woman suddenly said. "Because we don't have very long to learn about Hastur before he kills us all."

All attention quickly turned to her. "What are you saying, sempai?" the short haired woman next to her whispered.

"I'm saying, Maya-chan, that the avatar of Hastur known as the King in Yellow is here this very instant, planning to bring Hastur himself as soon as possible, through the very simple process of killing people to gain more power, until his body has enough power to contain his entire essence. At which point Tokyo will become the new dread Carcosa, and Tokyo Bay will be the new Lake of Hali. Oh yes, and humanity will be extinct."

The room was silent for a moment.

4

Haruna-sensei yawned and put aside the papers she'd been grading when the doorbell ring. _It is such a relief to not have to grade any of Usagi's work anymore, she thought for about the thousandth time since school started. She chuckled as she headed toward the door. __You'd almost think I missed the girl._

She opened the door and said, "Yes? Hello?"

There was a man standing there. He was dressed in bright yellow, slightly archaic garb, though how it was archaic she couldn't quite say. What she was more concerned about, though, was his face. It was extremely pallid, and didn't quite seem to be on right. _Almost like a mask... she thought distractedly._

"Are you Haruna-sensei?" the man asked. His voice sounded strangely hollow.

She blinked, and answered, "Yes. May I help you?"

"I believe so," the man said with a smile.

Had anyone been watching from the hall, they simply would have seen the man step into the apartment and close the door behind him. Unfortunately for Haruna, no one was.

5

After a moment, Chairman Ikari spoke, "I assume you make this statement based on readings from the Magi, Dr. Akagi." 

She smiled slightly. "Of course, Gendo. It detected him the same day KiY went down. I've been monitoring him, making sure. It definitely is him, though."

Fuyutsuki sighed tiredly. "Than we have very little time. What can we do?"

The teal haired woman spoke up. "We have to contact the Sailor Senshi. They are the only ones that have any chance of dealing with him. We don't know enough."

"No, Kiyone-san," the red-haired girl responded. "They won't stand a chance against him. Not yet. The Song of Hastur is too dangerous, and cast by the King in Yellow himself, he could affect them all in one fell swoop. They have to be taught the counter-song before they might be able to face him."

"Yeah, well, too bad Megumi hasn't finished researching it yet, _Washu!" Kiyone snapped back._

Washu stood angrily. "You, of all people, should know to call me Washu-_chan, Kiyone!"_

"ENOUGH!" Ikari Gendo shouted. Silence fell. "Squabbling won't help us." He turned to the lavender haired man. "Trunks, when is your mission planned for?"

The big man sighed. "Soon. Very soon, I will attempt to walk the corners and enter the Dark Kingdom. With any luck, I'll be able to retrieve him."

Gendo nodded. Then he turned to Washu and the silver haired girl. "Washu-chan, Ruri-chan..." The honorifics sounded odd coming from his lips. He sighed. "Continue your research. Kiyone..." 

The teal haired woman nodded back to him, and he continued, "You're on clean up."

She sighed. "Teach me to go into forensics." 

He turned to the remaining women. "Ritsuko-san, Maya-san, please continue monitoring him. We need—" 

A beeping interrupted him. Ritsuko pulled a palm pilot from her pocket and glanced at it, then hit a button and shook her head. "He just got stronger. I hope he doesn't realize we are detecting his energy signature."

Misato frowned. "Doesn't he only grow stronger when he gets a new mask? Whatever that means."

The others blinked at her. After a moment, Ruri spoke up. "There is a reason he is called the Stranger in the Pallid Mask. He does, in fact, wear one."

"Yeah, so?"

Ruri sighed. "Adults no baka. 'Pallid, _adj. _One:Having an abnormally pale or wan complexion: _the pallid face of the invalid. _Two:Lacking intensity of color or luminousness. Three:Lacking in radiance or vitality; dull. Synonyms: pale, pasty, ghostly, _deathlike..."_

Misato blinked. "Ooooh. Oh, _shit."_

6

The King in Yellow smiled at her appearance in the mirror. The dress certainly looked better in yellow than in red. Too bad about the make-up. She'd just have to go without. 

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes

Well, here is the first revision of the first part of Episode 2. I briefly considered putting all three parts back together, but that would make another huge file, and I'm not sure how to do it, anyway. This is easier. Of course, before I put this up, I'm going revise the other two parts anyway, so, whatever. I hope you're enjoying the story so far. With any luck, I can attract more people by openly stating it is a story with the elements of Lovecraft's writings, since heaven knows, I'm not attracting readers now. 

To any Haruna fans out there, I'm sorry. This is a horror story, after all, and things are probably only going to get darker. Also, here is the run down on the HERZ council/school faculty. Ikari Gendo, Fuyutsuki Kozou, Katsuragi Misato, Akagi Ritsuko, and Ibuki Maya are from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Habuki Washu and Kiyone are from Tenchi Universe. Trunks is from Dragon Ball Z. Ruri is from Martian Successor Nadesico.

Anyway, he's my disclaimer: I don't own anything in this fic besides Iain Caduceus. I hope he hasn't offended you too much so far. 

This story is Copyright 2002 by C-kun and Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions.


	3. The King in Yellow, part 2 Friends in T...

Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions 

Welcomes you to:

Sailor Moon L(ovecraft)

A Fusion with concepts from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.

Episode 2.3

The King in Yellow, part 2

Friends in Trouble

Note: Understanding this story requires no prior knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft or any of his writings. It does, however require a fair bit of knowledge of the anime series Sailor Moon. Like you'd be here if you didn't already have that.

This story takes place after Sailor Moon S. It can be considered an alternate universe, since it takes the place of Sailor Moon Super S.

7

Rei tried to keep from yawning during warm ups. This, of course, was kind of silly, since warming up your voice pretty much triggers yawning. _The guys in this class couldn't reach falsetto to save their lives, she thought, glaring over at the tenor section. Her still relatively new house mate, Caduceus Iain, gave her an ingratiating smile. She rolled her eyes at him and made a mental note to chew him out after class._

At this point, Reinard Megumi-sensei ceased warm-ups. "All right, class, today we'll be working on a piece in English."

Everyone groaned, except for Iain, of course. He smiled happily, until he caught Rei's glare. Soon, though, neither one of them had time to smile as the class started learning a choral arrangement of "Stairway to Heaven."

8

Finally, he allowed himself to slow to a walk, but even then, he pushed himself to walk as fast as possible. He knew he was almost there, and soon he'd be able to stop and catch his breath. Even as close as he was, though, he kept glancing over his shoulder, looking around nervously. After all, he didn't know when it would happen. He just knew it would.

When he rounded the final corner, he froze. Standing in front of her house was a woman in a yellow dress. His heart jumped into his throat as he watched her turn and look at him. Then he sighed in relief. It was just Haruna-sensei. _What's she doing staring at Ami-chan's house? he wondered idly as he start walking forward again. _

Then Haruna turned and started walking away. She was out of sight in a surprisingly short time, well before he'd reached Ami-chan's house. He felt a tiny bit of uneasiness about that. _My, she walked quickly._

Then he decided not to worry about it as he reached her porch. It'd been such a long time. He hadn't seen her since they had been in eighth grade. Now they were in tenth grade. In high school. He stared at her door, trying to work up the nerve to knock, to see her again. _Why am I so nervous? he thought. _

At that point the door opened, and there she was, blinking at him in surprise. He stared back. He couldn't help it; she was so incredibly beautiful. 

"Ami-chan?"

She stared at him. "Urawa-kun? What are you doing here?"

As he had so many times, he briefly considered falling to his knees, profusely apologizing for not keeping in touch, not trying to visit her, and telling her how much he loved her, that he wanted to stay with her forever. But if he did that, he knew, he'd lose the nerve to tell her the important part, the reason he'd finally come to see her again. Even though it might be the last straw, the end of their relationship...

Urawa Ryo took a deep breath. "Ami, someone's going to wear my face." _Damn, that didn't come out right at all._

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and said, "What? Like, impersonate you?"

He shook his head, and finally let the fear show. "No, like, carve my face off, and wear it as a mask."

9

Rei dragged Usagi out of her house by the ear to where Naru, Umino, and Iain were waiting. "Baka-Usagi! What are you doing sleeping in? We have a test in math today and you, of all people, should have been up early to study!"

"But studying's –ow!— no fun, Rei! I'd much –owwie!- rather be sleeping!"

While Naru and Umino giggle a little, Iain very carefully did not watch the seen and kept a straight face. He'd quickly learned the best policy when dealing with Rei. She seemed to have something against guys, which was a real shame, since she was totally hot. _Then again, he thought, __even if I did try something, Yuiichiro would probably pound me flat. _

At this point, the watches that Usagi and Rei always seemed to wear beeped simultaneously. They blinked, then babbled some sort of incomprehensible excuse, and rushed off in different directions, disappearing in moments. 

Iain blinked. Naru sighed sadly. "I don't get it, Gurio-chan! I mean, at least Usagi seems to have remembered I exist now that we're in high school, but still... I used to be her best friend, but now I can't even have one of those radio watches she talks to the other girls with! She _lies about it being a walkie-talkie type thing! What did I do to push her away?"_

"It's okay, Naru-chan," Gurio said, timidly. "I'm sure Usagi doesn't mean any harm. It's some club for dateless... No, that can't be it... Perhaps a club for people with bad grades...? No, of course, not, Ami has one..." Suddenly he laughed. "Maybe they're the Sailor Senshi and are trying to keep their identities secret!"

Naru blinked at him, then burst out laughing. "That's the funniest thing I've ever heard! Imagine, Usagi being Sailor Moon!" 

Soon both were rolling on the ground in stitches, while Iain shook his head. "I'm sure something must have been funny there, but I totally missed it. I wish my Japanese was better."

10

Haruka wandered aimlessly around during lunch. Michiru was preparing for the string ensemble course she taught. They'd both been surprised when Vice-Principle Fuyutsuki asked her to teach it for both credit and pay; she'd gladly accepted, though. Not that she'd need the money, but she was always happy to spread her artistic and musical talents around. 

This, however, left poor Haruka without her soul mate for an entire lunch. She would have gone running, except she had calculus after lunch, and had already been mercilessly mocked by Habuki-sensei (Haruka refused to call her Washu-chan in her own mind) for coming in sweaty once already. Habuki-sensei had quite the wit. Not to mention having a tanuki statue dropped on your head was painful and heavy. 

So, she wandered aimlessly around during lunch. After a while, she decided to wander over and see what the Inners were doing. 

When she emerged into the area in which lay the Inners' usual picnic table lay, she was in for a surprise. Instead of them sitting there and wasting their time with idle talk and gossip with those non-Senshi friends of Usagi's and that silly little exchange student, Usagi, Ami, and a boy she didn't recognize were standing near the table, looking serious and worried. The boy especially, was looking around nervously. None of the others were in sight.

With a little smirk, she strolled over to behind Usagi (motioning to Ami and the boy to be quiet) and clapped her hands over Usagi's eyes. "Guess who?" she asked mischievously. 

Usagi slumped back against her. Haruka staggered slightly, not expecting the girl's sudden weight, and she quickly moved her hands to keep Usagi standing. She craned her head around to look at Usagi's face, and blinked in surprise. "She fainted."

"Now I know why I saw myself waking her up with smelling salts..." the boy murmured to himself, then said quietly to Haruka. "I'm not surprised she fainted, considering what we've been talking about."

He pulled out a bottle of smelling salts and wafted it under Usagi's nose while Haruka stared at him. "Who are you, and what are you babbling about?" she asked.

Usagi moaned and shook her head. Then she looked back at Haruka. "Geez, Haruka," she whispered. "Don't do that..." She stepped away shakily, and Ami put a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

"I'm Urawa Ryo," the boy said. He glanced at Ami. "I knew Ami back in middle school." He paused, and waited politely for her to introduce this person to him.

Ami said quietly to Urawa, "This is Ten'ou Haruka, also known as Sailor Uranus." Haruka blinked in shock. Ami spoke again before she could object. "He knows. He was one of the Rainbow Crystal bearers back when we were fighting Beryl, and because of that he can see the future. Which is why he's here; he saw someone cutting off his face and wearing it like a mask."

Haruka stared at him. "That doesn't sound too healthy. Right. You can count on the Sailor Senshi. We'll talk to Pluto; she'll know how to keep you healthy."

_If she's willing to help..._

11

Rei walked home with Iain. Usagi, Michiru, Haruka, and Ami were accompanying Urawa to Setsuna's house, while Minako and Makoto looked around for any suspicious characters. 

Iain, Rei noticed, seemed glum. "So, Iain..." she said. She still wasn't entirely comfortable around him. He was very strange at times. "You seem down. Anything wrong?"

He looked at her and blinked. "Hmm? Oh, no, I'm fine." He flashed her a bright, frequently practiced smile, and returned to staring off into space as he walked. 

_Nuts... Uhhh... "How's Umino? Talked to him lately?"_

"No, but he's talked to me a lot." She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. 

She made a face at him when he couldn't see, and gave up. To her surprise, though, he spoke again after a couple of minutes. "Who... where did... how do you guys know Urawa?" 

She looked at him. Could he...? Naw, no way. "Why?" 

He shrugged, clearly uneasy. "Well, he just kind of showed up, and you guys all talked a bit, and then everyone got real worried... except Naru and Umino, of course. They were as confused as I was." He shrugged. "I shouldn't really expect to be friends with all of you, but I'd think you could at least tell Naru and Umino what's going on. Naru's complained a lot about always being in the dark."

Rei sighed. There was a problem that had no solution. Usagi had asked several times if she could tell those two about everything, but the rest of the Senshi (a.k.a. Rei) had voted her down. Rei just didn't think that Naru could handle keeping the secret from Umino, and she was sure that Umino wouldn't be able to keep the secret from anyone. However, if they didn't tell them soon, Naru could very well get fed up with all the secrecy and just quit associating with them. That, of course, would devastate Usagi and set back the little emotional progress she had made towards maturity.

Rei had had a lot of practice thinking these thoughts, and it didn't take her very long. She was about to open her mouth to reply when it hit her. All her arm hair stood on end as the wave of... not so much evil, as the sense of something totally alien... washed over her. Beside her, Iain gasped and whispered. "By the pricking of my thumbs..."

12

When the door finally opened, everyone there stared in shock. Setsuna—smooth, mysterious, always in control Setsuna—looked like she'd been through hell and back three or four times. Her hair was a mess, tangled, knotted, and he clothes clearly hadn't been changed in a long time. There were huge dark circles under her eyes, which were so bloodshot that the whites of her eyes couldn't even be seen. 

"Setsuna?" Michiru asked, shocked. 

She stared back at them, wide eyed. "I'm trapped..." she whispered. "Completely trapped..."

Then her eyes rolled up and she quietly began to collapse. Haruka and Michiru were able to catch only barely in time.

Everyone looked at Ami, who blinked back. "Uh, let's, uh, get her inside, put her on the couch."

Once inside, Ami looked her over. "I think she's just suffering from exhaustion. Maybe malnutrition and dehydration too. Just in case, someone should make her some broth, something nutritious..." She shrugged. "Then we wait."

13

C-kun: [walks out onto the stage] Well, due to the overwhelming support for our last scene thirteen break, I've decided it will be a regular feature of Sailor Moon L. [flashback to the sounds of crickets and Chibi-Cultist Rei screaming in unidentifiable languages, then slightly, but not all the way forward, to the almost total lack of reviews of any sort, and no comments at all about the scene thirteen break] Ahem. Anyway, today, we have Ryo-Ohki, the true star of Tenchi Muyo and an, err, incredibly adorable spaceship. 

Ryo-ohki: [hops out onto the stage next to C-kun with a carrot strapped to her back] Miya! [removes carrot and starts eating]

C-kun: Err, so, Ryo-ohki, how are you?

Ryo-ohki: *Crunch-crunch-crunch*

C-kun: O-kay. Well, uh, what are your opinions about all the lemons out there starring you or your friend Sasami? I'm sure those must upset you.

Ryo-ohki: *Crunch-crunch-crunch*

C-kun: Riiiight. Anyway, Ryo-ohki doesn't seem very talkative today, so I guess we'll just get back-

[The stage explodes as Ryoko blows the living snot out of the entire area, then proceeds to fly away carrying a perfectly unharmed Ryo-ohki, still eating]

14

While Michiru was busy fixing broth for Setsuna, the others stood around and talked quietly, discussing how best to protect Urawa, considering that Setsuna seemed to have problems of her own. Ami, however, stayed out of the conversation, staring out the front window. Urawa, being who he was, noticed and managed to inch his way out of the discussion and over to her.

"Ami-chan?" he asked hesitantly as he approached. When she didn't respond, he came up closer behind her. As he slowly tried to wrap his arms around her, he said, "Ami-chan, I'm sorry-"

She quickly pulled away and looked at her feet. "Sorry? Sure you're sorry. You're sorry 'cause you had to come ask me to protect you again, that's all!"

He shook his head desperately. "No, that's not it! I... You know my father. I just had no chances to-"

"Phoning and writing don't take that long, Urawa," she said softly...sadly. "I know you got at least some of my letters. I asked for receipts from the postal service, when you got the letters. _You!" she suddenly hissed, glaring at him. I know that you, yourself, were handed not one, but several of those letters, because the receipts had your __signature on them!"_

He blinked in shock. That explained why they'd been in those weird packages. Shit. "I, I-"

"I thought we had something special, Urawa!" she said, almost pleadingly. "I thought I meant something to you! But you never even tried to call..."

At this point she started to weep softly, and Urawa suddenly felt the glares of the other Senshi on his back. He felt like crying himself. "Ami... I... I was too scared, Ami... I just..."

She turned away from him. He tried to step closer, but she moved away again and said, "Urawa-kun, I, I just can't be with someone who only talks to me when his life is in danger. I may be a Senshi, but, I need comfort sometimes too..." Her weeping increased into sobbing, then she spun and stumbled away from him. 

He reached out a hand as if to pull her back as Usagi threw her arms around the poor girls shoulder and gave him a glare. "Ami..."

15

Makoto sighed in irritation as Minako ran off after a butterfly. "Is it me?" she muttered, "Or is Minako acting awfully flighty today?" 

Suddenly Minako froze, and pointed. Makoto blinked and peered down the street. The only think she saw was some woman in a really ugly yellow dress that didn't match her red hair at all...

Then she blinked. "Is that Haruna-sensei?" she asked, puzzled. 

Minako shrugged. "I think so. Whoever it is, she can't be up to any good. Anyone with that fashion sense... I mean, I'm all for yellow, but that shade, and when your hair's that color? Gross!"

Makoto nodded sagely. "Definitely. It can't be Haruna-sensei. She had good fashion sense. She never wore anything that clashed with her hair. Come on, we better follow." 

And off they went, as the woman turned down another street.

16

Rei stared at the woman. She looked familiar, but whoever she was, she definitely was the origin of the feeling of wrongness that she was getting. She glanced at Iain. He was pale as paste, but at the same time looked very determined. As she looked, he seemed to whisper something. 

"What?" she asked him softly.

He jumped a little, and looked at her. Scratching his head sheepishly, he said, "Uh, just a prayer. D-do you know any, like, banishment spells or something?" He looked doubtful. "Because whatever that woman is, it isn't good, and I'm not much of a spiritualist..."

She grinned and pulled out a spirit ward, privately wondering if she should send him to get her grandfather and take the opportunity to transform. The sense of wrongness felt overwhelming. "I've got all I need right here," she said with more confidence then she felt. The woman was grinning unpleasantly at them. 

To her surprise, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver cross the length of his palm. He smiled nervously, and said, "I'll do my best." Closing his eyes, "May my faith be enough..."

She nodded solemnly. She had no issues with lack of faith, but she knew many people who tried to be religious did. She respected the effort. 

They stood their ground as the woman approached them. Glancing past her, Rei saw Minako and Makoto pop their head around the corner. She mouthed, "Transform," at them.

Then the woman spoke, and Rei realized that it was Usagi's old Jr. High teacher even as she knew that it was wrong, wrong, wrong! With a strangely empty voice, _it said, "You're little symbols aren't going to help you against me. And you little friends aren't going to be able to help, either."_

Rei's eyes narrow. "You're not that big yourself, lady."

Beside her, Iain whimpered. Rei resisted the impulse to roll her eyes, keeping them glued to the thing wearing Haruna-sensei's face.

"Whatever you are, you're going to be punished for doing... whatever it is you've done with my friends' old teacher!"

When it grinned, she realized that along with everything else, the skin of the face just wasn't right. It was almost like it'd been stuck on...

And when it opened its mouth, the most horrible sound Rei had ever heard in her life came out. It was a horrible, ghastly ululation, and it seemed to have multiple, dissonant melody lines occurring at the same time. Her first impulse was to clap her hands over her ears, scream; anything to drown out that noise. Iain did exactly that. 

She gritted her teeth, and with one fluid motion, charged and launched half a dozen spirit wards. The being slapped them aside without pausing in the song.

Pain washed over her body, and she looked at her arm in horror as her flesh began to blister and boil. Now, it was time to scream...

To be continued...

Again.

Author's notes: Here's the second revision of Episode 2.3. I'm still not going to put them together. Besides, that, IMHO, is one heckava cliff hanger. It has finally been edited, so if there are any mistakes left, someone needs to mail me an N^2 mine.

To any Urawa fans, I'm also sorry. He always struck me as rather wishy-washy, and him avoid contact with Ami because he's scared of commitment, or of being hurt, or whatever, seemed entirely plausible. [grin] And he's convenient. I'm a little shaky on canon, whether he's actually able to remember them or not after the whole beat Beryl, set time back a year thing, but I made a judgment call that because of his powers, he remembers. I'm sure someone out there will hate me for breaking canon, too...

By the way, Reinard Megumi is the communication's officer from the wonderful show Martian Successor Nadesico. Before she was the comm. officer, she was an anime voice actress, and since most anime voice actresses (sorry, can't remember the spelling of the Japanese word) tend to sing, I thought she'd make a good choir instructor. In case you hadn't noticed by now, I love using cameos for semi-major roles.

Anyway, he's my disclaimer: I don't own anything in this fic besides Iain Caduceus. I hope he hasn't offended you too much so far. 

This story is Copyright 2002 by C-kun and Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions. 


	4. The King in Yellow, Part 3 Pluto Plane...

Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions 

Welcomes you to:

Sailor Moon L(ovecraft)

A Fusion with concepts from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.

Episode 2.7

The King in Yellow, part 3

Pluto Planet Power, Make-up

Note: Understanding this story requires no prior knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft or any of his writings. It does, however require a fair bit of knowledge of the anime series Sailor Moon. Like you'd be here if you didn't already have that.

This story takes place after Sailor Moon S. It can be considered an alternate universe, since it takes the place of Sailor Moon Super S.

17

_KRACKABLAM!! _

The song stopped, the pain subsided, and the beginning of bubbles in Rei's flesh disappeared. She gasped in relief and dropped to her knees. They weren't particularly steady anyway. 

She looked up a couple of seconds later, when she could uncross her eyes again. There was a large hole in the middle of the forehead of the entity wearing Haruna-sensei's face. Slowly, it dropped to its knees, then fell face down in the middle of the sidewalk. 

As her vision continued to return, she noticed Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus staggering to their feet behind the being. A quick glance to her right showed Iain slowly uncurling from a fetal position and hesitantly removing his hands from his ears.

"What hap-" _Crack! His eyes rolled up in his head as a woman (whose long purple hair hide her face from Rei) stepped up behind him and slammed a pistol butt into the back of his head. Rei gaped ineffectually. The woman nodded approvingly at her handiwork._

"There. Now you can transform with him seeing."

With that, the woman turned and looked at Rei. Rei gaped. "Misato-san?"

Her teacher and hero gave her a quick grin. "Yup, that's me. Now come on, change. Even a silver bullet in the head won't stop that thing for long."

Rei opened and closed her mouth a couple times. Then someone smacked her in the back of the head. Behind her, the voice of her biology teacher, Akagi Ritsuko, said, "Come on, Sailor Mars, get a move on. I just saw the King twitch."

Rei started to turn around and look at Ritsuko, but then saw Haruna's body move its head. She decided it was probably time to change—especially seeing as Jupiter and Venus were just gaping at Misato and Ritsuko.

"MARS STAR POWER, MAKE-UP!"

"Impressive." 

She turned and looked at Ritsuko, who seemed to be making notes on some sort of hand held computer. Then Haruna's body started pushing itself up. 

Misato grabbed Iain. "Time to leave. Follow us." She spun and started running. Ritsuko followed. When Venus and Jupiter reached Mars, glancing nervously in between the running figures and the twitching body, Mars shrugged. "I think we better follow."

So they did.

18

Meiou Setsuna moaned as she woke up. Everything was fuzzy. "Wha' ha'ned...?" 

"Here Setsuna, drink this." 

She recognized Michiru's voice, and swallowed the warm liquid that was offered. Once it was gone, she sighed and closed her eyes. "Don't worry," she interrupted. "I'm not passing out again."

After a moment, Setsuna sat up. Slowly. Looked around, and saw that things weren't going particularly well. Ami's eyes were red and puffy from crying, and Usagi kept glaring at a boy in the corner. Setsuna blinked, and was surprised to see that the boy was Urawa Ryo. Michiru and Haruka was sitting on the coffee table looking at her. "So what's the deal, Setsuna?" Haruka asked. 

Setsuna sighed. "I can't get into the future."

Everyone looked at her confusedly.

She sighed again, this time in irritation. "The Time Gate won't take me even one second farther into the future than when I accessed it. I've spent the last three days trying. I can go anytime into the past, but not into the future at all."

"That's bad, isn't it?" Usagi asked.

"Yes, Usagi. That's extremely bad. We have no guidance now. Whatever it is that's happening, it isn't matching what is supposed to happen. I went to Crystal Tokyo after we dealt with those cultists and checked; there was never any attack by Byahkee, and we never had anything to do with a cult at all."

"Wait a second! What are you talking about?" Ami burst out, then shrank back a little as the Outer Scouts turned and looked at her.

Even though they were irritated, Michiru quickly explained. By the time she was done, Usagi was irritated. "Why didn't you tell me about this? Why didn't _Mamo-chan tell me about this?"_

Haruka rolled her eyes. "We didn't want to worry you, Odango-atama. You have enough on your mind with school-"

"NO!" Everyone jumped and looked at Usagi, who looked both angry and on the verge of tears. "I am the Princess. And whatever is happening, we're going to deal with it, and I'm still going to be Queen someday. When we are attacked, I _will be notified!" _

There was silence for a moment, and then Setsuna nodded. "I apologize, Your Highness." She sighed. "I don't think telling you would have made any difference in our present situation, though." She looked at Urawa. "Hello, Urawa-kun. Why don't you come over and tell me why you're here?"

Urawa blinked in surprise and hesitantly walked over and sat on the couch next to her. "How...How do you know my name?"

Setsuna chuckled. "Urawa-kun, you have visions of the future. I'm the Guardian of Time. I know a _lot about you."_

He paled. "Oh."

She laughed outright, this time. "I don't, however, know why these four brought you to my house at such an inopportune time."

So Urawa described his vision.

By the end, it was Setsuna who was pale. 

19

They finally stumbled into some sort of lab in the basement of the school.

"We should be okay here," Misato said as Venus placed her on her feet. Jupiter put Iain on a convenient counter, while Mars put down Ritsuko. Senshi, even Senshi carrying people, can run a lot faster than normal humans.

Reinard Megumi, Rei's choir teacher, walked into the room looking at a pile of printouts and said, "Oh, hello Rei," when she glanced at the people in the room. The Senshi blinked in surprise. 

A moment later, a young woman none of them recognized rushed in and ran over to Ritsuko. "How did it go? Are you alright, Sempai?" 

Ritsuko smiled. "I'm fine, Maya. It went very well. We have three of the Senshi here." Maya blinked and looked at them.

"Oh," she sniffed disappointedly. "I was hoping one would be Ami."

The Senshi shook their heads in amazement. 

Then from behind them, came the voice of their English teacher, Randolf Carter. "I see you all survived your encounter with the King." He looked extremely relieved, but even so, the small man's eyes kept darting nervously to the door, as if he were afraid they were followed.

The Senshi turned and stared at him for a bit. Finally, Mars pulled herself together, and said, "What...? How...? What the heck is the King you people keep mentioning?"

"The King in Yellow," Ritsuko said. "Here, have a seat. Maya, wake that young man up, would you please?"

Maya nodded and set about doing that.

In the mean time, Ritsuko continued as the Senshi sat gingerly on some stools. "The King in Yellow is the avatar of an incredibly powerful entity that currently exists on a planet circling the star Aldebaran. His mission here is to prepare for the coming of that entity, Hastur. He's also known among his followers as He Who is Not to Be Named. However, the King in Yellow is no weakling itself; its most powerful ability is the Song of Hastur, which you almost experienced... Mars." 

Iain was groaning and sitting up. "What the heck happened? I've got a headache... Are you the Sailor Senshi?" He boggled a little at the three attractive girls in short skirts. 

Mars nodded at him, and then turned back to Ritsuko. "Continue, Ritsuko-san."

Instead, Carter started to speak. "We believe there is a counter-song to the Song of Hastur. We know that it can be used to counter itself, but learning and singing it tends to drive people insane. Our expert on the Music of the Spheres, Megumi, is researching the counter-song. You four are going to need to stay here tonight, where we have some measures of defense against the King in Yellow. It won't be safe for you out there until Megumi has taught you the counter-song."

The Senshi exchanged glances. Iain just kept boggling.

Venus shrugged. "As de facto leader when Sailor Moon's not here, I say we stay. That... that thing-" She paused and took a deep breath. "That thing wearing Haruna-sensei's face wasn't even aiming the Song at us, and we couldn't do anything except cover our ears and cry." She swallowed hard.

Jupiter nodded, looking pissed. "Yeah. I think we're gonna have to stay here." She looked at Ritsuko and Carter. "What kind of defenses do you have, exactly?"

The exchanged glances. "Effective ones," Ritsuko said. "Let's leave it at that. Come on, I'll show you where you can stay."

Iain was still boggling as they all left the room.

20

Beep, beep, beeeeeep.

"It's no good," Usagi said as she worriedly looked at her communicator. "They just aren't answering."

"The signal doesn't seem to be getting through," Ami said, working on her computer. 

Setsuna sighed. "Well, we'll just have to hope they are safe somewhere. I think, however, for Urawa's safety, we had better all stay here until we figure out what to do."

"Oh, great. One of those days." Usagi made a face. She hated telling lies to her parents. She went and called her parents to tell them she'd be staying at Ami's house for the night. Ami didn't need to call her mom, since Ms. Mizuno was away at a conference. 

"It must be hard to have you're mom gone so much, Ami," Usagi said later, as they all settle down to a very quiet meal. 

Ami shrugged. "It gets a little lonely, sometimes. If it's not some conference, it's over time at the E.R. or the Children's Center. She works so hard to help people though. And I have Pen-Pen to keep me company." She frowned. "I hope he can manage himself for a night." Then she shrugged and smiled. "Anyway, I'm very proud of my mom. I hope I can do as well someday."

"You'll do fine, Ami." Usagi probably would have gone on, but Michiru had just served her, and she was already inhaling her food.

Ami chuckled faintly. Urawa just stared at his food.

21

Reinard Megumi stared at all her notes, her computer, her numerous sources in her research of the counter-song scattered around her desk. 

"You've got to be kidding me," she told them.

Then she laughed faintly. "I guess it makes sense though... Sorta."

She got up and went to tell Ritsuko. As she walked, she laughed again. "The song's the thing, wherein we'll catch the powers of the King."

22

Chiba Mamoru was out on a late night walk. It was nearly one in the morning, but that didn't bother him. He'd just finished an essay for his contemporary author's course, and he felt like a little fresh air before he visited the lands of slumber. And so it was that he was passing Setsuna's house just in time to see the figure of a boy crawl out a window and tumble onto the lawn. He blinked in surprise. _That's unusual, he thought to himself._

He paused to watch as the boy got up, dusted himself off, and walked toward the street. Mamoru glanced along the line of the boy's path, and saw a dark figure in the shadows of a house across the street. 

The boy walked up to the figure, and seemed to simply stand there. Mamoru frowned, watching the pair, then jumped as the boy suddenly shouted, "Oh, SHIT!"

Mamoru rushed toward the two— 

Then blinked, as they were suddenly gone. _This bodes not well, he thought, and quickly moved over to Setsuna's door. As he knocked, he transformed into Tuxedo Kamen. _

23

Several minutes later, half a dozen soldiers for love and justice pored out of Setsuna's front door, if you count Tuxedo Kamen. Mercury sounded frantic as she stared at her computer and whispered, "Scanning, scanning, scanning, sca- Got it! This way." She took off at a run, going so fast it was almost unsafe, considering she was still looking at her computer screen. The others followed, after exchanging grim glances.

After several minutes of twisting and turning, Mercury suddenly came to a screeching halt. She was very, very pale.

"It's gone..." she whispered in shock. "His life signature is gone."

_Oh, shit,_ thought Uranus. _Here it comes._

Suddenly there was a loud beeping whine from the computer, making them all jump. Ami stared at it for a second, then said, "Some... some sort of incredible... energy signatures at the same coordinates Urawa was... Its more powerful than Wiseman, more than Mistress Nine, almost as powerful as Beryl was when Metallia was in her...!" 

"Shit. I hope it's friendly," Uranus said.

They resumed their journey.

24

Gendo Ikari sat in his office, his white gloved hands clasped in front of his face. After a moment, Fuyutsuki walked in.

"The King has taken another victim," the old man said.

"Hmm."

"This one gave him an exceptional burst of power. The victim had the ability to see the future, apparently."

"Hmm."

"He can probably affect a major portion of the city with the Song, now." 

"I hope the counter-song works, then." Gendo finally articulated a reply.

"So do I."

There was a sound behind them, and the turned to behold Trunks, bleeding and beaten, a sword covered in dark, viscous liquids in one hand, and a crystal the size of a man under his other arm.

Finally, Gendo smiled. Or at least smirked. "You're mission went well, I see?"

Trunks grunted, and walked by them, out of the room.

25

A nice large parking lot out in from of a supermarket was where the computer led them. At one in the morning, there were no cars in it. Very convenient.

There was a short figure, looking down at an indistinct shape on the ground. They all stopped at the edge of the lot, and Uranus yelled out, "Hey, you! Turn around and show us your face!"

The figure's head rose, and then, sure enough, it turned around and stepped into the circle of a streetlight. Urawa smiled at the Sailor Senshi. 

"Urawa!" Ami cried joyfully, and started to rush forward. Then she was jerked back as someone grabbed her arm. She looked at Neptune in surprise. "What are you doing?"

"Take another look at him, Mercury," Neptune said gently.

Mercury turned and looked at him again. She blinked when she saw that his clothes were yellow, even they other than that they looked exactly the same. And the she looked closer at his face. Despite the mediocre light, she could see that there was something wrong with his face. His smile was grotesque.

"What's wrong, _Ami?_" Urawa said, with a strangely hollow sounding voice.

She stared in horror at the boy standing before her. "You aren't Urawa!"

"Very astute," the entity said dryly. 

Pluto stepped forward. She looked very tired as she said, "You're the King in Yellow, aren't you?"

"That would be one thing you could call me, yes."

_Finally_, Sailor Moon thought, as she stepped forward. "I can't allow you to harm any more people. That..." she trailed off for a moment, as she really thought about what she was about to say. "That was Ami's boyfriend, whatever difficulties they may have been having! And he was a friend to all of us!" She swallowed hard, and wondered if there was any way she'd be able to bring him back with the crystal. "What you've done is unforgivable! I am the Pretty Soldier in a Sailor Suit, Sailor Moon! In the name of the Moon, I'll punish you!" 

"And I'm Sailor Mercury, guardian of love and wisdom! What you've done... I can't allow it to happen again!" Mercury was clearly on the verge of tears. "In the name of Mercury, I'll punish you!"

Neptune and Uranus exchanged glances and stepped forward to give their speeches. As Uranus opened her mouth, though, the King spoke. "Oh, good grief. I'm not about to be stopped, or punished, for that matter, by a bunch of magical girls." And with that, he began to sing. 

With one voice, the Senshi shrieked as pain washed over their bodies. Tuxedo Mask gritted his teeth and launched some roses, but even though one went through the King's eye, the song didn't stop. He gasped and collapsed with the others. 

Mercury's screams rose above the others' as she began to smoke. She could feel something horrendous, horrible... the flesh on her back was starting to boil. With extreme exertion of will, she managed to pry her eyes open and look at Sailor Moon, next to her. She was horrified to see Sailor Moon's face slowly melting.

And then new pain racked her body, and she could no longer even think.

C-kun: [Evil laugh.] This is called a mid episode dramatic break. Were this on TV, there would be a commercial break. Here, however, you can just view this as the screen fading to black, and then coming back up with a fresh look at the scene.

The five Sailor Soldiers and Tuxedo Kamen writhed in pain in a lonely nighttime parking lot, while the King in Yellow sang the Song of Hastur with a smile. Things were not looking good.

Then, out of the darkness, came another voice! A beautiful female voice, with strains of music backing it up. And this is what it sang:

"Just take those old records off the shelf,  
I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself,  
Today's music ain't got the same soul,  
I like that old time rock and roll!"

The pain that was wracking the Senshi's bodies suddenly eased off. They all caught their breath, and started to pull themselves together. Out of the darkness stepped (you guessed it, I hope) Sailor Mars, with a small, portable karaoke machine.

"Don't try and take me to a disco,  
You'll never even get me out on the floor,  
In ten minutes I'll be late for the door,  
I like that old time rock and roll!"

If the situation hadn't been so grim, she would have felt a little silly. But, it seemed to be working. From the darkness behind her, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus made their presence known. 

"VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN!" The glowing chain of hearts flew out towards the surprised looking, but still singing King in Yellow.

"SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!" The ball of super charge lightning flashed out in into the chain, sending a massive jolt of electricity into the King at the same time the chain hit him in the chest, making a wet slapping sound. The King staggered, but then he grasped the chain and pulled it with a squelching sound out of his chest. He did this even as electricity still coursed through his body. And he was still singing. 

Mars could feel some sort of incredible pressure on her mind, trying to get her to stop singing. She mentally gritted her teeth and kept singing. 

"Still like that old time rock and roll,  
That kind of music just soothes my soul,  
I reminisce about the days of old,  
With that old time rock and roll!"

"Sailor Moon! Now!" Tuxedo Mask shouted.

Sailor Moon nodded, though her eyes were watering from the pain in her face. She pulled out the Spiral Heart Moon Rod, and opened her mouth, when,

"NO!" came a cry behind her. She turned, and gasped. It was Sailor Pluto who had spoken, but her face... her face was scarred nearly beyond recognition. "Heal us, Sailor Moon," Pluto grated out, through the pain. "Or this will be permanent, and the pain will stay with us forever!"

Sailor Moon gulped, and grasped the Silver Crystal. "MOON HEALING ACTIVATION!" The light flowed over them all, and the last of the pain died away.

"Call me a relic call me what you will,  
Say I'm old fashioned say I'm over the hill.  
Today's music ain't got the same soul,  
I like that old time rock and roll."

"And now," Pluto whispered. "I will deal with this menace."

The King in Yellow was concentrating on Mars, but he heard Pluto. His eyes flicked to her.

Pluto raised her staff and pointed the Time Garnet at him. "Pluto..." she whispered.

His eyes narrowed.

"Temporal..." she said, louder now.

His eyes widened.

"HELIX...!"

His eyes grew resigned.

"DISSOLUTION!" she screamed. The stars above started to distort, shift, spin, as a mass of greenish purple darkness suddenly was whirling in the sky above. Quickly, surprisingly quickly, a huge spinning tornado-like tendril of the darkness lashed down and engulfed the King in Yellow. They could still see him though the colored, shining darkness, but he seemed strangely distorted. Again, incredibly quickly, he started to dissolve, break apart, disassociate. The fragments of his body flew up into the sky, and in the blink of an eye, both he and Pluto's attack were gone. 

And all was quiet, except for Mars's karaoke machine as she trailed off in shock.

"Still like that old time rock and roll,  
That kind of music just soothes... my..."

The Senshi all stared at Pluto, who slumped tiredly. After a moment, she looked at Sailor Moon.

"I am the Guardian of Time, Your Highness. That requires incredible power- perhaps not as much as you can harness with the Silver Crystal, but close. I've never used any but my weakest attack because it was necessary for you to deal with our enemies for the future to turn out properly. But the King in Yellow was never in the timeline. We are in uncharted territories, and I will do whatever is necessary to ensure the future that you all have seen." 

Then she turned and headed for her home.

The crazy of the world cried out, "THE KING IN YELLOW IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE KING!"

And that, as they say, was that.

26

The dark shape that the King in Yellow had been staring at was Urawa's real body. Faceless. Mercury cried long after she had changed back into Ami.

As the sun rose, a pair of bloodshot eyes watched it wearily from an empty classroom in SGN High. After a time, Iain whispered. "I was useless again. Why, Chris? Why?"

He stared at the glowing white long sword in his hands and cried. 

Deep in the secret basements underneath the school, Professor Washu grinned as a man sized crystal cracked, then shattered, leaving a confused, gasping blonde man behind as it crumbled to the floor.

And light years away, on a planet orbiting the star Aldebaren, in a city called Carcosa, next to the Lake of Hali, an entity known as Hastur the Unspeakable laughed. 

THE END

Authors Notes: Oh, yeah! I am pumped about this chapter. Things are heating up in Sailor Moon L. This is the revision of episode 2.7. My pre-reader finally got his rear in gear and looked over everything. 

I hope my teasers for the next episode have done their job. I might let you know a little about Iain's past next time. He is actually a character from another set of (really bad) stories I've written on and off over the years. Maybe, someday, I'll put them up. As for the other teaser, I'm hoping you can figure it out. ;)

I'd like to thank everyone who's given me a positive review so far (all four of you). It's nice to think that someone out their likes my writing, even if it is rather esoteric. 

Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me, except for Iain. He does, and so do the situations the characters are in, as well as the overall story.

And if I've offended anyone, I'm sorry. 

This story is Copyright 2002 by C-kun and Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions.  


	5. The Calm Before the Storm Tragic Stori...

Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions 

Welcomes you to:

Sailor Moon L(ovecraft)

A Fusion with concepts from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.

Episode 3

The Calm Before the Storm

Tragic Stories and Preparations

Note: Understanding this story requires no prior knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft or any of his writings. It does, however require a fair bit of knowledge of the anime series Sailor Moon. Like you'd be here if you didn't already have that.

This story takes place after Sailor Moon S. It can be considered an alternate universe, since it takes the place of Sailor Moon Super S.

1

After a short visit by a strange woman with teal colored hair and a headband, Mr. Urawa finally broke down and arranged for a funeral for his missing son. Ami and the rest of the Senshi attended, as did Mamoru, Motoki, Naru, Umino, Yuuchiro, and Iain. 

It was a very somber event. Mr. Urawa was only able to speak for a short time before he broke down. Many people were worried about him, because after losing his wife all those years ago, he'd mostly lived for his son and his job; he had done the best job he could to raise Ryo.

Rei's grandpa presided over the ceremony; in fact, it was held at Hiwaka Temple. Mr. Urawa had never understood his son's faith in Shinto beliefs, but he honored them now. Ami was crying almost as soon as the ceremony started, and her sobbing and Grandpa's prayers were the only sounds heard through the rather short, but entirely too long ceremony. 

Finally, it was over. The guests (mostly Mr. Urawa's friends and coworkers) started milling around and talking softly, as guests are wont to do after funerals. The Senshi had little to say to each other, though. Naru and Usagi wept gently while their respective boyfriends held them; Minako stayed near Motoki, saying very little, while Yuuichiro helped Grandpa. Makoto and Rei both kept to themselves, thinking their own private thoughts.

After a short time, Rei noticed Iain staring off into space near the prayer tree, where a prayer for Urawa Ryo had been hung as the final part of the ceremony. He was clutching his cross tightly, and looking upset. 

Rei's eyes narrowed. Even though she'd attended a Catholic school up through the end of middle school (and only a cheap plot device had kept her out from going to one for high school as well), she was offended for some reason by some American Christian just waltzing in and saying his own prayers for a faithful Shinto. She marched over angrily and snapped (albeit softly), "Why are _you so sad?"_

He jumped, surprised, and stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. "Since when was being sad at a funeral a crime?" he asked, sounding a little hurt.

"You hardly even knew him," she said. Then she sighed. "Not that I did either. Sorry, I just…"

"Don't like some dude carrying a cross hanging out at a Shinto funeral, huh?" he asked, with the ghost of a smile. She blinked, surprised. Normally he wasn't so insightful. He laughed, and went on. "Don't blame you. Really though…" he glanced over at Ami, who was talking quietly with Mr. Urawa while tears still trickled down both their faces. 

"I feel so sorry for Ami. I…" He made a frustrated face, though whether it was because he couldn't think of the right Japanese term, or for some other reason, she couldn't tell. "I just… I wish…" He sighed. "I don't know. I want to help her somehow. I wanted to help stop that thing… but when the Sailors left, they wouldn't let me go with them. I yelled and screamed a lot, but…" 

She'd heard the story before, not to mention she'd been there, as Sailor Mars. She hadn't understood then why he thought he could help, and she didn't understand now. So, she said so.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I… I've never been any sort of help against monsters before…" He seemed to be on the edge of tears. "I just…"

Rei gave him a quizzical look. "You keep mentioning monsters and things like that. I know there are a lot around here, but I kinda get the impression that you've dealt with the supernatural before coming here?" _That and you say your friends are all dead, but I won't mention that, she thought. _

Iain winced, and said, "Yeah… I don't… Well, actually, you probably would believe me. Especially if I showed you."

She blinked. "Showed me?"

Across the grounds, Ami bid farewell to her late boyfriend's poor father, and slowly made her way over to Makoto. "Hey, Mako-chan," she whispered. 

"Hey, Ami. You alright?" Makoto paused. "Sorry, stupid question."

Ami laughed quietly. "No, it's fine. I'm feeling a lot better, now. I've promised Urawa-san that I'll come visit him, make sure he's alright…" There was a pause, and Makoto turned and looked at her. Ami was crying again. "I… I never even –sniff- even got to a first name basis –sniff- with him! It was… It was always Urawa-kun… Not Ryo-kun… or Ryo…-chan…" Coherant speech ended at that point, and Makoto simply held her friend as she cried.

2

It was three days after the funeral, and quite a group was gathered in the main chamber of the temple. The ache in Ami's heart had dwindled to an almost bearable level. She tried not to think about Urawa as she waited for Rei and Iain to arrive, since they were the ones who had asked them all to be there. 

"Them all" included all the Inners in civilian mode (after all, Iain didn't know they were the Sailor Senshi), Haruka and Michiru, Mamoru, Umino, Naru, Grandpa, and Yuiichiro. 

Ami briefly wondered if Usagi had told Naru and Umino about the Senshi yet, but dismissed the idea, since Umino wasn't acting any different around them. Rei and Setsuna had finally given their blessing for Usagi to tell Naru, and Ami was surprised she hadn't capitalized on it yet.

Finally, Rei and Iain walked in. Rei smiled and walked over to sit with everyone else, while Iain stood nervously at the entrance to the room. After a moment of everyone staring at him expectantly, he began. 

"Er, I suppose… I suppose you've all wondered, at one point or another, about some of the comments I've made in the time I've been here. Uh, well, I can't think of any off the top of my head…"

Umino raised his hand and said, "Oooh! Whenever you mention that Chris guy!"

Iain closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Sure. Like those. Anyway, I've decided to give you all a short history of my life, which will demonstrate why exactly I'm so weird." He smiled faintly. "Rei's already heard this, but she wanted me to tell you all myself. 

"You were the people she picked out that she thought could handle the things I'm going to tell you, since you've all had contact with the supernatural." The Senshi in disguise had to suppress laughter. He had no idea how much contact they'd had…

"And anyway, you're pretty much everyone I know." That produced a chuckle. Iain smiled, since getting a chuckle had been his intention for that comment. Now…"

"As Umino said, you've all heard me mention someone named Chris, who, I'm sure you've gathered, is dead. Christopher Gramyre-" He stopped. "Uh, Gramyre Chris-"

"We understand, go on!" Rei snapped. 

Iain winced. "Sorry. Christopher Gramyre was one of my two best friends at the school I went to in America. He was handsome, funny, charming, and popular… Everything I never was. I always lived in his shadow, but that didn't bother me, since I am a follower by nature. However, I also have this desire… this desire to have a purpose. To feel needed. Sure, if this had been any normal friendship, I wouldn't have had a problem. Chris was a genuine friend, and enjoyed having me around. But, the little catching point in my life… was this."

With that, Iain reached up into the air in front of him, and seemed to grasp something none of them could see. Then he made a pulling motion down, and they all gasped as one (except for Rei). As he pulled, a shining white sword blade slid out of thin air, casting light onto Iain's face, making it softer… more noble. Ami had to resist the desire to change and scan it with her visor and supercomputer.

As they stared, he said, "This… is Lightbringer. Chris used this sword for three years to destroy demons, monsters, vampires… all sorts of minions of darkness. I, and a couple other people we knew, helped. However, everyone who helped had some sort of useful, paranormal or supernatural ability that made them an effective weapon against the forces of evil. Except for me.

"That was my major sticking point. That is the reason my life has been hell…" He stopped. "Sorry, I'm whining again. I haven't really reached my point. Not that it's much of one-"

"You're rambling again, too," Rei said sweetly.

Iain winced. "Sorry again. Anyway, I don't suppose any of you have heard of Poseidon High School…?"

Their eyes widened. Even in Japan, there'd been news stories about the mysterious slaughter of an entire high school full of students. There had only been a few survivors, who had ranted about demons and monsters, but the American government had officially denied there was anything supernatural about the incident and had yet to release anything substantial.

"Well, that was our school. Someone… or something… got tired of us killing their minions. So they sent creatures far more powerful than we could handle." His voice had been getting weak, and now he was choking on unshed tears. "I was even more useless than ever… I couldn't… couldn't do anything. Just get a couple of people to safety, outside the school grounds. By the time I got back, everyone… everyone was dead or dying." He paused, and took several deep breaths. "Chris gave me his sword. But I can't use it. It has no power when I hold it. At least I can still put it away… 

Usagi stood, walked over, and wrapped her arms around him. He stood stiffly, and cried into her shoulder, though he made no move to embrace her back. The sword fell from his grasp, and slipped back into the air and disappeared. After a minute of this, he pulled shakily out of her grasp, smiling his thanks at her. "So… that is my story… now you know why I'm such a killjoy. Thank you for listening. I… I need some time alone, now." And with that, he left for his room. 

3

They spent a while just sitting there, after that. 

Usagi walked back to Mamoru, and sat within the circle of his arms. She'd heard Iain talk about Chris's girlfriend, Megan, and had gotten the impression that their love had been strong. She was scared to think that something like that could still happen to them, despite the power of their love.

Mamoru held Usagi tightly. He vowed, once again, that he would _never let anything happen to his Usako._

Rei smiled at Grandpa as he gave her hand a loving squeeze. _Don't worry, Grandpa. We have the strength to win the day, no matter what. Nothing bad will happen to us._

_ Yuuichiro and Grandpa were both thinking of Rei. They prayed that nothing so terrible would ever happen to her. Little did they know, it already had, in her past life._

Umino and Naru held hands tightly and leaned on each other for support. They knew what it was like to be helpless. 

Michiru laid her head in Haruka's lap. It had been a heart rending story, perhaps the saddest she'd ever heard, short of the fall of the Moon Kingdom. She gazed up at Haruka and gave her a small smile.

Haruka smiled back. She'd been impressed. The boy had amazing willpower. She strongly doubted anyone here, except perhaps herself, could handle their entire high school being slaughtered without going off the deep end. _Iain may see himself as weak, but he may well be the strongest person I know…_

Ami stared at the door Iain had left through in horror. _He's been through so much… We've never had any experience as terrible as that… I need to be strong. I've only lost one person my entire life… Ryo-kun… Even my dad still writes me… He never said what happened to his family._

Makoto held back tears, saving them for later. She was thinking about her parents. She knew his pain, though she hadn't lost so many, or been exposed to so much death… But she'd lost her parents. One person, or one thousand, is the same, if it's the wrong one.

Suddenly, Minako stood up with a sharp cry. Everyone jumped a little, and stared at her. Tears were streaming silently down her face as she raised her fist and vowed to the heavens, "He lives in so much pain! I must do what I can to ease the burden on his beautiful pure heart!" With that she disappeared down the hall towards Iain's room. 

And with that, the tension broke. Makoto laughed, and said, "She never changes, does she?"

Haruka shook her head with a rueful smile. "Nope. She's still stuck in Death Buster mode. But would we really want her to?" 

Ami smiled too. "Nope." He smile faded a little. "I hope she can help him."

Michiru commented, "He's very strong. I don't think he needs all that much help. He's dealt with it well. This was simple dredging up old memories that he'd already dealt with."

Usagi smiled off after Minako. "Maybe they'll hook up?" she said, with a twinkle in her eye. 

Rei glanced at Ami appraisingly, and whispered to Usagi too softly for the blue haired girl to hear, "I think he might like Ami, actually."

Usagi made a face. "That'd be a little harder," she whispered back. "She's still getting over Urawa. Minako's single and desperate, though."

Rei glared and hissed, "Baka-Usagi! Don't talk about Mina-chan like that!"

Usagi flinched. "Well, she is!" Then she jumped up. "Okay, everybody! I think we've imposed on Grandpa and Rei and Yuiichiro long enough! We all need time to think! Come on, come on, everybody out!"

Everyone laughed, and started filing out, while Rei twitched in surprise. Usagi? Being responsible again? Maybe she really was growing up!

As they shuffled along at the end of the line, Umino and Naru gave Usagi a look that the poor princess was very familiar with. It said,_ "What is it __you're not telling us, Usagi?"_

Usagi smiled the brightest smile she'd smiled since well before they'd faced the King in Yellow, and danced happily over to her oldest friend. "Come on, Naru! I'll walk you guys home!" 

Naru and Umino exchanged glances and shrugged.

4

Minako marched up to Iain's door and knocked. His voice almost immediately came from inside. "I'm FINE! GO AWAY!"

"You're not getting off that easy, buster!" she cried as she threw the door open and marched in. "You need emotional support!" She blinked and stopped as she watched him blow away half a dozen Youma in the latest Sailor V game, which looked very nice on his computer. "You're pretty good."

"If I can't kill monsters in real life, at least I can in my games. Why do you think I'm such a computer nerd?"

She shrugged. 

"Yeah, well," he continued, "I'm fine." He paused the game and turn around with an overly cocky grin. He was clearly forcing it; even Minako could tell. 

"Uh-huh. Sure you are." 

"I am!" 

"Prove it."

He stared at her. "How am I supposed to prove it?"

She shrugged. "I remind you of Chris's girlfriend, don't I?"

Paling a little, he replied, "How'd you know that…?"

She smiled a little. "Mamoru told me."

"Oh." He paused. "Well, you just look like her. Your personality is nothing like hers was." 

Minako raised an eyebrow. "That bad?" 

"No, no! Not at all," he responded quickly, shaking his head.

"Good!" With that, she flopped down on his bed, a twinkle in her eye. "So, you like Sailor V, huh?" 

He blinked at her. "Yeah, some. It makes for a nice game. I think it's kinda funny that this mysterious super-heroine is active in England for half a year and then becomes a major Japanese commercial success, while the Sailor Senshi have been around in Japan for two years and no one's tried to make any money off of them at all."

Minako laughed delightedly. "They're afraid that the Senshi will demand royalties like Sailor V did. Or that they just won't allow products, period."

Iain raised an eyebrow. "Sailor V is getting royalties?"

"Yeah, but it's kind of a secret, so don't go spreading it around," she giggled.

"How do you know?" 

She winked at him conspiratorially. "I'm Sailor V."

He blinked. "You're full of it."

"I am. Here, I'll prove it! V JUSTICE POWER, MAKE-UP!"

And with that, Iain was temporarily blinded by the spiral of red, white, and blue light that came when Minako activated her rarely used Sailor V transformation. 

Sailor V grinned as he rubbed his eyes and stared at her. "Holy shit…" he whispered in English.

She mock frowned at him. "Don't swear. It's not nice."

"Wow," he said, staring at her. "That's an even better outfit than the Sailor Senshi wear." Suddenly he frowned and asked, "Can you take off your mask?"

She looked at him quizzically. "Why? I don't see-" She blinked, and suddenly, her mask was gone. Iain was twirling it around one finger. _Kami-sama__, he's fast! V thought. __No wonder he was able to survive all those monster attacks with no offensive powers._

He was grinning at her, and now said, "Ha! You're Sailor Venus, too, aren't you?"

_Oh shit, she thought. _

"Which means… Makoto's the tall one, brown hair, must be Jupiter, Rei's gotta be Mars- Holy shit, I'm living with a Senshi!- then Ami, short hair, Sailor Mercury… then Usagi's Sailor Moon…?" He blinked. "Unlikely leader you've got, V."

V scratched the back of her head nervously. "Uh, you're not going to tell anyone you've figured this all out, are you? 'Cause I'll be in big trouble if you do…" She smiled ingratiatingly at him.

He laughed. "No, I won't tell anyone. I wouldn't want the world's greatest heroine to get in trouble, after all." He looked at her admiringly. "Wow. I'm talking to Sailor V." Suddenly, he got a thought, and jumped over to his book shelf. He pulled out a Sailor V manga that had been translated into English. "Can I get your autograph?"

She laughed and signed it.

5

Naru and Umino sat on the formers bed, gaping at Sailor Moon. "Usagi? You're Sailor _Moon?" Umino asked, finally._

Sailor Moon frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're the leader? Of the Sailor Senshi?"

"Well, yeah! What did you think?"

"Well, I-" Naru's hand clapped over Umino's mouth.

"What he means is that he's impressed with your leadership abilities," Naru said, smiling now. Before Usagi could respond, she stood up and whapped her friend lightly on the head. "Why didn't you tell me, you goofball?!" 

Sailor Moon cringed. "Sorry, I-" She was interrupted by Naru laughing, much to her surprise.

"You didn't want me to get hurt, I know. I've read enough Sailor V to know her excuses for not telling her friends." She suddenly threw her arms around her friend. "You're still the best friend ever, Usagi!"

Poor Sailor Moon was very confused, but was glad Naru was taking it so well. "You're my best friend ever, Naru! And now I don't have to lie to you anymore! Yay!"

Umino chuckled.

The two old friends released their embrace, and Sailor Moon changed back into Usagi. Her face was uncharacteristically serious as she said, "It goes without saying that you guys can't breathe a word of this to anyone, right? Because if this gets out, Mars and Uranus will make sure we wish we were never born."

Umino and Naru nodded quickly, since both were intelligent human beings and had already figured out who the other Senshi must be. Knowing Rei and Haruku, they were certainly were willing to believe that the consequences of the secret getting out would be dire.

Then Usagi grinned. "Enough of that though. I bet you want to hear about all our keen adventures!" And those were tales that kept them up far into the night.

6

"And here are Washu's labs," Ritsuko said with a smile as she led eight Senshi and a Prince of Earth through a large door. They looked around in awe at the massive chamber they had entered, which was filled to the brim with bookshelves full of old books, various strange contraptions, and glowing computer monitors. 

"Washu is our expert on hyper-physics and para-mathematics. As you might or might not have guessed, the research into such topics have driven even her brilliant mind quite insane, but luckily for us all, it is a relatively safe form of insanity, and has actually helped her by expanding her capacity to understand the infinite. However, if you tried telling that her insanity is harmless to her poor assistant, Ruri, or to any one of her 'guinea pigs,' I think you'd get rather convincing arguments as to the opposite."

Iain, with a rather pitiful, frightened look on his face, seemed to be removing and replacing Lightbringer in its hiding spot repeatedly, while all sorts of weird instruments measured the energy. He caught sight of them and gazed over pleadingly.

"Huh. That's where he was all weekend," Rei commented.

Iain whimpered loud enough for them to hear it all the way across the room, and a sense of hopelessness entered his expression.

"I would suggest that we not linger here, and that none of you _ever agree to let her study you. She'd never let you go," Ritsuko said._

Very nervous now, the group quickly left.

7

When she entered the office of the Chairman of HERZ, Pluto raised an eyebrow. "Gendo. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see you here."

Gendo was in the Gendo Position™, but now he unclasped his hands and stood. "Hello, Pluto. It's been a long time."

She smiled slightly. "I suppose that would be a matter of perspective, now wouldn't it?"

He allowed himself a chuckle at that one. "Yes, well. Please, sit down." 

She did so, but frowned. "So, Gendo… Is this school going to be churning out 'tools' for your personal battle against the forces of darkness?"

He smirked as he sat down as well. "Very astute, Pluto. Can you blame me, though?" He leaned forward, his eyes fierce behind his glasses. "Humanity it heading towards its darkest time. We need to be prepared. I am doing my damnedest to prepare the world to combat both kinds of menaces; those things not of humanity, and our own ignorance and evilness." He paused, then settled back. "I am prepared to support you and your Sailors anyway possible, however. We believe we have information dredged up from Atlantis that will be able to help you, but we're going to need time to process it."

She sat silently for a moment. Finally, she said, "The timeline is damaged beyond repair. I cannot get to the future, and I can't discover what is keeping me from it."

His eyes widened, slightly. "Very well, then."

Her eyes, in contrast, narrowed. "I believe that you may have had something to do with this, Gendo."

"And how do you propose I was able to seal you off from the future?"

"I believe your foolish investigations into the unknown are what stirred up whatever it is that has sealed me off. The King in Yellow wasn't it; I was hoping, but even after I destroyed him, my situation didn't change. The King should never have been on Earth during this time, though. I don't know why he was, but it bodes not well."

She stood, then, and turned to leave. Before she did, though, she turned back to him and said, "If I find enough evidence that you've somehow brought about my problems, intentionally or unintentionally, it won't go well for you, Gendo. The Great Old Ones were dogs we should have let lie. If more awaken, we may not be able to deal with them. Even with your help." And with that, she was gone.

8

"Ah, come on, Rei! I mean, he lives with you! Wouldn't it be easier to tell him?" Minako said pleadingly to Rei as they walked from Biology to English together, a little behind the others.

"Why do you care, Minako?" Rei asked, exasperated. 

"I, er, I… And it's not like it would be a big deal to let him know, since he has the sword thingy and all…"

"A no is a-" Suddenly a thought struck her. She looked at Minako with a little smirk on her face. "Minako… Do you like him?"

Minako's eyes went wide. "WHAT? NO! No way do…" She trailed off suddenly. Did she? Was there anything so wrong with him…?

"Hey, Minako," a voice called. "What's up?" 

Minako spun around, hearts in her eyes. "Oh, hi, Duo-kun!" she said dreamily, smiling at the boy with the braid. He flashed he a smile, then turned and grinned at the boy he was with as they walked by. 

"Well, scratch that," Rei said dryly. "So why do you want to let Iain know about us if you don't like him?"

"What?" Minako asked, still staring after Duo.

Rei sighed. "Never mind."

9

"Did you hear? Did you hear? Have you heard the news?" Usagi shouted, running to catch up with her friends after school one day. They all turned bemusedly and looked at her as she came to a screeching halt beside them. 

"What news are you talking about, odango-atama? I hear lots of news over a Monday," Rei sighed.

"The first dance of the year is in two weeks! I can't wait! Mamo-chan will blow all the other girls' dates away!" With this statement she closed her eyes, clearly imagining her stunning entrance to their first high school dance, Mamoru at her side.

"Yeah, and then your dancing will break all their feet," Rei said sarcastically.

"Oooh, Rei! You're so mean!" Usagi snapped. "Why are you always so cruel?" She stuck her tongue out at Rei; the dark haired priestess returned the favor.

"Oy," Makoto moaned. "We're in high school now and they still have tongue wars…"

"Actually…" Ami suddenly spoke up. "I'm not sure they'll allow a college student to take a first year girl to a dance…"

This got Usagi's attention for sure. "What? Not let Mamo-chan take me to the dance?! No way! They can't do that! Can they?"

Rei sniggered. Usagi glared. "Oh, yeah, Rei, and you have a date all lined up, right?"

Rei stopped sniggering. The other three girls all looked at each other. "We're in trouble, aren't we?" Makoto asked.

Ami and Minako nodded solemnly. Then all three sat on the curb with a sigh while Usagi teased Rei about taking Yuiichiro.

10

Umino was whistling a cheery tune as he entered the card shop. He was looking for just the right card for Naru to ask her to the dance. Normally, he would have just made one on his computer, but he was in the middle of an upgrade, and his computer was in pieces. So he was here.

He strolled down the aisles, when he noticed that one of the other customers was actually Iain. He smiled and went over to his friend. "Hey, Caduceus-kun! I didn't expect to see you here!" 

Iain blinked and turned to look at Umino. "Why not? Am I not allowed to buy cards?"

Umino shrugged. "No, not at all. You're as free to buy a card as I am. So who are you planning on asking?" 

Had Iain been drinking something, he would have done a spit take. As it was, he made some gasping sounds before glaring at Umino. "What makes you think I'm asking anyone? Why would I ask a girl to the dance with a card, anyway? I mean, I could just be getting a card to send home to my sisters, couldn't I? Huh?"

"Well, you could be, if you weren't getting so defensive about it. As it is, I think you're definitely asking a girl." Umino grinned at Iain.

Iain snorted, and went back to looking at the cards. Umino peered over his shoulder to find him looking at… "Sailor V cards, eh?" Umino asked.

"You aren't any more Canadian than I am, Umino. And that sounds down right silly in Japanese."

"Your Japanese has gotten a lot better since you've been here, Iain. But as to the girls you know that are fans of Sailor V, I'd have to say that you are planning to ask Minako!"

Once again, he would have done a spit take. He eventually managed to turn and glare at Umino. "I don't like you. Not in the least little bit." 

Umino just grinned. "Oh, you love me." 

Iain snorted and selected a card. 

11

"So…"

Two boys sat lethargically on a set up concrete steps in the courtyard of SGN High. Suzuhara Toji was tall and dark haired, wearing a set up black and purple warm ups. Aida Kensuke, on the other hand, had glasses and sandy colored hair, and was wearing something much closer to the typical school uniform. The only difference was that he had his white dress shirt unbuttoned, and underneath was a camouflage undershirt. 

"So…" Toji said again. "Y'got any plans fer da dance?"

"Er… well, I was kinda thinking about asking…" Kensuke trailed off.

"Askin' who?" Toji said, his curiosity piqued. 

"Hino," Kensuke said quickly.

"HINO?!" Toji nearly shouted, jumping up.

"Keep it down, Toji! You want to let the entire school know?" Kensuke said frantically, making nervous motions for Toji to sit back down and be quiet. 

"Hmmph," Toji snorted, flopping back down. "Hino's almost as bad as da Red Devil. Da same personality, jes different hair color 'n' background."

Kensuke had a silly grin on his face. "Yeah… I know. She can attend to my spiritual needs any time."

Toji rolled his eyes. 

"What about you?" Kensuke asked.

"Erm… well, I was thinking' 'bout askin' Kino, y'know? She's nice 'n' tall, and got real nice-" He made a cupping motion at chest level with both hands, "and she'za real athlete, y'know?"

"I don't know… I don't think you remind her of her old boyfriend, so you could be in trouble."

"Yeah, well, I don't think yer exactly Hino's type either, yo!" 

They blinked at each other, then sighed, and returned to silently lounging on the steps.

12

Iain blinked as Minako came skipping up to the group's usual lunch table. _She's in a good mood. Maybe after lunch would be a good time to-_

_ "Hey guys! Guess what? You'll never guess!" Minako did an excited little dance that would have reminded poor Kiyone-sensei entirely too much of her old partner Mihoshi, had she been there to witness it. _

"So, she tells us to guess, then says we never will…" Rei said conversationally. Then she jumped up and shouted, "JUST TELL US!" at Minako, who was still dancing.

Minako blinked. "Oh, sorry. Duo-kun asked me to the dance! He's so dreamy!" 

Iain went back to his lunch, while silently crushing the card he had in his pocket.

13

[The stage is trashed. After a moment, C-kun pokes his head out from behind a large couch that has been ripped to shreds] 

C-kun: Ah, is it that time already? Damn. Well, folks, I'd planned to interview Tenjou Utena from one of my favorite animes, Revolutionary Girl Utena, but instead, that basket case Saionji showed up instead! He's been trying to kill me for something he says I posted on a message board about him! I, frankly, don't know what the lunatic is talking about. 

Saionji: [walks in, katana in hand] There you are! You are going to die, now!

C-kun: Eeep! Now back to the fic! [runs off stage, ducking and dodging katana blows from Saionji, who's right behind him]

14

"Don't be so down on yourself, Iain. It's not the end of the world," Mamoru said as the two trekked through women's department of the mall well behind Rei and Usagi, who were getting ready for the dance. Everyone had been shocked to hear that Aida Kensuke had asked Rei, and even more shocked to hear that she'd accepted. Usagi had been perplexed, since she'd been sure that Rei was going to end up going with Yuiichiro, while the rest of Rei's friends had been pretty sure she'd accepted just so that Usagi would quite bugging her about him.

"I really thought she liked me though. She's been way nice to me for the past couple of weeks. I was sure she wanted me to ask her," Iain sighed. "And then that Duo guy asks her, and I'm at square one again." He made a face. "This always happens to me. I'm always a bit too late."

"Well, it's hardly the first time a guy's misread the signals that a girl has been sending." Mamoru shrugged. "She's probably just been trying to be a friend. It's not your fault."

"Yeah, yeah. Doesn't mean I can't be depressed about it."

Mamoru rolled his eyes. "Why don't you ask Mako-chan or Ami? Neither of them have a date yet."

"Actually, Makoto got asked by Suzuhara Toji today during P.E. I was standing right there," he chuckled. "She dropped the basketball, she was so surprised, and he nabbed it and dunked it. After chasing him around the gym and smacking him in the head with half a dozen basketballs, she said yes!"

They both chuckled at the image, even though Mamoru didn't have a clue about who exactly Toji was. When they had contained their mirth, Mamoru said, "Okay, how about Ami? She doesn't have a date."

To Mamoru's surprise, Iain suddenly got very red. "I, erm, I'm sure she probably doesn't, err, want to be bothered, I mean, so soon after, uh, Urawa and everything, and, you know, I doubt I'm her type, and-"

"What the heck are you babbling about?" Rei said, as she and Usagi wandered up with their acquisitions. Mamoru sweat dropped as he saw how much he would be paying this trip.

"Nothing!" Iain said quickly, turning even redder.

Usagi's eyes narrowed. "Really?" She examined him closely, causing him to lean away and fall down. She blinked down at him, then grinned. "Iain's got a cru-ush! Iain's got a cru-ush!" 

Rei grinned to. "Who were you guys talking about? Trying to find Iain a date for the dance?" 

Iain tried to crawl underneath a rack of clothing, but Mamoru produced his Kamen cane, snagged him by his belt, and pulled him back out. Mamoru grinned as he said, "I was telling him that he should ask Ami to the dance."

"That's a great idea!" Usagi cried. "Omigod, Iain! Are you gonna? You've gotta. Everyone else has a date, we've gotta get one for Ami, too! You'd be perfect! Come on, you have to. We'll help you!" She grabbed a hold of Iain and started dragging him off. Iain shook his fist impotently at Mamoru, who just grinned and waved.

15

Yuiichiro swept with extra force, for he was in a bad mood. He'd just heard that Rei's high school was holding a dance, but when he'd asked her if she wanted to go with him, she'd told him that she already had a date. Worse yet, she wouldn't even tell him who, so that he could make sure that he was worthy of her. Fat chance of that, of course.

"Yuiichiro!" came Grandpa's voice from the entrance of the temple. Yuiichiro sighed with irritation and headed over to the old priest. 

"Yes, sir?" 

The old man handed him a book. "I've decided a little reading will do you some good. This is a collection of ancient Shinto teachings. Perhaps reading them will have more of an effect on you than me preaching to you all the time."

Yuiichiro blinked as he looked at the book. It had a plain leather binding with nothing on its cover. He shrugged. "Thanks, Grandpa. I'll read it before I go to bed." He wandered over to his room on put the book on his bedside table, then returned to sweeping, feeling slightly better.

Later that night, as the denizens of the Temple at dinner, a shadowy figure moved silently through the temple grounds to the window of Yuiichiro's room. It silently crawled through the window, and made its way over to the bedside table. When it left, the book was in a slightly different position… and it was slightly larger…

To Be Continued…

Author's Notes: Well, I was really rolling. No action in this one, but that'll be more than remedied in the Episode 3.6. Ah, I love my numbering system. I think we're looking at a nice Serial Experiments Lain style thirteen episodes for this story. I intend to be half done by the end of summer. One episode a month; think I can do it?

Well, time for apologies and comments. I know next to nothing about Shinto death ceremonies; I just was kind of general and wrote what sounded good. If anyone wants to send me details on a real Shinto death ceremony, I'd be happy to read them and incorporate them into the story. 

I think I ended up going overboard with Iain. My intention was to make him something other than your typical ACC. He seems a bit _too_ pathetic as I read through this, though. I think I'm doing pretty good when it comes to not having him be the center of the story. Tell me what you think… is he a good support character? As anyone who's written a fan fic with an ACC, it is very hard not to spend a lot of time on them. 

I don't actually know what phrase Minako uses to change into Sailor V. I made it up. I have yet to be able to find any Codename: Sailor V manga. Though mostly for lack of money and effort.

I am modeling Toji and Kensuke on their characters from the Neon Genesis Evangelion manga, not the anime. Kensuke wants Asuka in the manga instead of disliking her. Toji still can't stand her. Also, I'm doing my best to reproduce Toji's manga accent.

Whoa, that's a lot of notes. Uh, okay, here's the Disclaimer: I don't own any character in this except for Iain Caduceus. Please don't sue me for using your characters. It's just for fun. 

Anyway, expect the rest of Episode 3 before the end of June. Maybe even before the end of May. Its not like I need to do final projects anyway, yo?

This story is Copyright 2002 C-kun and Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions.


	6. The Storm Breaks! Life, Interrupted.

Kami-sama! We're here at

Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions 

For the Unveiling of

Sailor Moon L(ovecraft) 

Episode 3.6!

The Storm Breaks

Dance, Interrupted

Note: Understanding this story requires no prior knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft or any of his writings. It does, however require a fair bit of knowledge of the anime series Sailor Moon. Like you'd be here if you didn't already have that.

This story takes place after Sailor Moon S. It can be considered an alternate universe, since it takes the place of Sailor Moon Super S.

16

"So let me get this straight; you like Ami, but you were going to ask Minako because you _thought that she liked you? Baka!"_

WHACK! 

Iain rubbed his head and glared at Haruka as she continued to expound on his stupidity when it came to relationships. "You are a frickin' moron." Iain opened his mouth to speak, but she didn't let him. "And certainly don't listen to monkey-boy Toji over there. Even if you _had been sure she liked you, doing that would have only ended up with you hurting Minako and denying yourself happiness. You can't be greedy when it comes to relationships. You have to have mutual attraction-" he almost interrupted again at this point, but she just kept talking "-physical __and emotional. You have no emotional attraction for Minako, do you?"_

"I, er-"

"Didn't think so. So what you've got to do, if you are really so worried about saving face, is find out if Ami would be willing to go to the dance with you, and then ask her and go from there." She shrugged. "Sorry I can't help you more; Michiru's my soul mate, so it was pretty easy to get together with her."

Iain snorted. _Yeah, well, I've seen what happens to soul mates, he thought, a little resentfully. Why couldn't he have a soul mate? _

17

Ami sighed as she packed up her books at the end of history. The dance was only a couple days away and no one had asked her. It wasn't really being dateless that bothered her; it was that all her friends _had dates. Usually at dances, the four Inner Senshi could have a fun time hanging out and laughing at Usagi stepping on Mamoru's feet, but this time... she'd be all alone... a wallflower all over again..._

_Sigh. She was just about to leave when Misato said, "Hey, Ami-san? Can you stay a minute?"_

"Oh, sure, Misato-san." She paused as Misato puttered around her desk for a moment, then walked over.

"First of all, I want to congratulate you. You and Rei have the top grades in my class. I'm very impressed with you both." Misato smiled at Ami, who blushed a little with pleasure. "Secondly, I was wondering how my penguin is..."

Ami laughed. "He's doing well, Misato-san. I think my mom is a little irritated with him, though."

Misato frowned. "Why? What'd he do?"

Ami laughed again. "Beat her at chess the other night. Three times." 

Misato blinked. "Well, he's had a good teacher. I am fairly well versed in strategy; chess or otherwise." She paused for a moment. "Of course, he beats me, too..."

They both laughed at that. Then Ami said, "Well, is that all? I need to go shopping for a dress for the dance..."

"So you found a date? Who is he?" Misato grinned.

Ami blushed. "Uh, well, I don't really have a date, but I'm still going, so..."

"Really? Gee, there was a student fourth period who was complaining very vocally about not having a date... Iain, the exchange student Washu's experimenting on, with the sword. You know him, right?"

"Oh, Caduceus-kun?" 

Misato nodded. "Yeah, he was whining like the world was ending and his rocket had been delayed. Toji nearly beat him to death." She chuckled. "You should ask him. He lives with Rei, doesn't he? I know you two're friends, so it should work pretty well."

Ami was blushing again. "Er, I don't know, Misato-san. I... I'm not sure I'm up to... you know, after Urawa..."

Misato's face softened. "I'm sorry. I was only trying to help." She unconsciously touched her cross pendant. "I'm sure his soul is somewhere better than this."

Ami smiled. "Thank you, Sensei. I need to be going now."

"All right, don't have too much fun!" Misato winked, and got to work. Ami left. 

18

When Ami got home, she was surprised to find the door unlocked. _Mom must be home, she thought. __That's unusual._

As she walked in, she called, "Taidama!"

Then she stepped into the living room, and both her jaw and her shopping bags dropped. Iain was sitting at the coffee table blinking stupidly at a checkers board, as Pen-pen took seven of his pieces in one move. "Well, crap," he said.

"What the heck are you doing in my home?!" Ami screeched.

He looked up at her, his face brightening. "Oh, Ami! Hi! Uh, I came by to talk to you, and Pen-pen let me in. You weren't home, so he challenged me to a game of chess while we waited." He made a face of the checkers board. "We switched to checkers after he checkmated me the third time."

"Are you crazy?!" she nearly shouted. "What if my mother had come home?"

"Oh, hi, Ami," her mother said, coming in from the kitchen with a plate of cookies. "Pen-pen let your friend in, and I couldn't very well kick him out when he needs to talk to you, so I made him some cookies." She smiled cheerfully as she sat down the cookies. "Help yourselves. I'll bring out some milk in a second."

Ami briefly wondered if her mother had been kidnapped by aliens. "Mom? Why...?" She couldn't think of a way to phrase the question. 

"Why didn't I get angry and kick him out like I should have?" Ms. Mizuno asked. "I don't mind. I think Pen-pen is responsible enough; he can make judgments on whether to let someone in or not."

"He's a _penguin, mother!" _

"He beats _us at chess. He reads the paper and watches TV. He uses the computer. He-"_

Iain spoke up, then. "If you guys had a better computer, I could play Unreal Tournament with him over the Internet."

Ami's mother nodded. "See? He's just as intelligent as any human. I don't have a problem with him letting in friends to play."

Ami stared at her mother as if she was crazy.

"And anyway. Playing with him has improved my chess game. I beat the Director for the first time yesterday. I'm feeling lenient." With that, she withdrew to the kitchen. 

Iain smirked at her, while she just rolled her eyes. _That made more sense. She sat down next to Iain on the couch, and pointed out his best move. Iain grinned as he took it, while Pen-pen gave her The Evil Eye. She rolled her eyes at him. "It doesn't matter. He can't win anyway."_

Pen-pen shrugged, then waddled off to get a soda. Ami looked at Iain. "So what did you need to talk to me about?"

He blinked, then got very red. "Urm, well, I, uh, I was just, er, wondering, you know, if you, if you, er-"

She sat there listening to him stutter, and was suddenly blushing, herself. She smiled though, and said, "If I'll go to the dance with you?"

He blinked. "Yeah, that." 

She hesitated for a moment. She still had points where she would break down crying over Urawa. However, she didn't think Urawa would want her to go be lonely at the dance while her friends had dates. Besides, Iain could be sweet, in a pathetic kind of way. If Naru could go out with Umino, it wouldn't hurt her to go on a date with Iain.

"Sure. I'll go with you."

His eyes lit up. "Really?! Great! I, er, well, I need to go do some homework for Misato's class, but I'll, er, talk to you later!" He made a fairly graceless exit, nearly falling head over heels as he nervously backed out of the front door. 

She managed to contain her laughter until after he left.

19

On the night of the dance, Yuiichiro was in a funk. Kensuke had already come and picked up Rei, and he couldn't believe she'd agreed to go out with such a dork. If Grandpa hadn't been there seeing them off, Yuiichiro would have kicked the living daylights out of that pitiful excuse for a male. He saw red just thinking about Kensuke being with Rei.

Having nothing better to do, he was busy reading the book Grandpa had given him. This was the first time he was reading it, since he'd sort of ignored it the last couple of days. He was too angry to sleep right now, though, so he was reading in hopes of boring himself into that happy state of being.

So far, he wasn't seeing any connection to the little Shinto training he'd absorbed so far in his career as a temple acolyte. It seemed to be a sort of strange babbling about Great Old Ones and Outer Gods; he was very sure that the ancestors didn't have those terms applied to them. Not to mention he didn't recognize any of the names. 

"'...and Y'golanac will come forth, to consume the enemies of his host and take that Innocence the host has so long desired to taste. Unjustly spurned, ignored in favor of men far less worthy, the Maid mocks him, so in righteous retribution...' Fuck, sounds like me. Poor guy." Suddenly, he leapt to his feet, anger twisting his face. "Damn it, I don't have to take this! I'm going over there and telling Rei that she has to be with me!"

And with that, he charged out of his room. As he thought about what they would do when Rei finally understood that they were meant to be together, he licked his lips hungrily. Of course, both tongue and lips were on his palm...

20

Rei sighed. _It would have almost been better if we'd come without dates. At least the others are having fun... She was standing near a wall, reflecting on the group dynamics thus far into the evening. Ami and Iain had been nervous as hell around each other all night, but also had seemed to be happy. Minako was on Cloud Nine, of course, dancing all the time with the attractive Maxwell Duo, and they'd all been surprised about how inoffensive Toji had been around Makoto so far. _

Rei, though, was bored to tears by Kensuke's prattle about guns and warfare. She enjoyed military history, but he somehow managed to ignore all the strategy that went into battles and wars, and focused on explosions. It was all very well and good for a while, but she was quickly getting tired of it. 

So, she had sent him off to get some punch just as a slow dance started. He'd looked a little disappointed, but gone. She stood in her elegant red dress, watching her friends dance with their dates. Duo seemed to be grateful for the break from fast dancing with energetic Minako, but Makoto was wincing a lot as Toji kept accidentally stepping on her feet. _Poor Makoto, she thought. __At least they get along. _

Iain and Ami made a pretty pathetic dance couple. Yeah, they were slow dancing, but their arms were almost straight, as if they were afraid to touch each other. Rei noticed Michiru and Haruka laughing at the couple a little ways away. 

She felt, rather than saw or heard, someone come up beside her. "May I have this dance, m'lady?" she heard the figure say. She blinked and turned to him, for he had the most familiar voice...

He was tall, as tall a Mamoru, and as broad shouldered and athletic looking. In a sharply tailored grey tuxedo, he smiled charmingly and wiped a wisp of blonde hair out of his face. The only catch was that he wore a Tuxedo Kamen style mask over his eyes, concealing his features. She went with her first instinct at the sight: she laughed and said, "Who're you, Tuxedo Kamen's brother?" 

He bowed low and said, "I cannot produce roses from nothing, m'lady, but I do have this." He held up a pink chrysanthemum, and with one deft movement affixed it in her hair. She blinked in surprise, and let him lead her out onto the dance floor, where they began to dance. 

He led her in some sort of waltz. She couldn't remember learning it, but somehow she seemed to know the steps to it anyway. Far more advanced than the shuffling hugs that the other slow dancers were engaged in, it soon began drawing attention. Within moments, other couples had stopped their shuffling, and were simply watching the elegant performance. Kensuke was blinking in surprise with two glasses of punch. Not that he felt he had any reason to complain; if some rich handsome senior wanted to steal a beautiful girl like Rei away from him, he was at least thankful he'd spent time with her.

She didn't notice all this, though; her attention was fixed solely on her dance partner. This whole situation was so surreal, and yet, so dreadfully familiar... "Who are you?" she whispered. 

"A friend," he replied. "We knew each other long ago."

Even his voice was familiar. She was about to reply when something blurred by them and hit the wall with a loud _crunch. She turned and looked; it was a person. A person that was now leaking bodily fluids on the floor next to the wall. "Kami-sama..." she whispered, her eyes widening as she turned to look the direction that shattered figure had come from._

Standing in the doorway was Yuiichiro, his eyes glowing. His hands hung limply by his sides, but she couldn't help noticing the twitching things extending from his palms. Wondering what he was doing, she started to move towards him, but before she took three steps, someone grabbed her arm. She turned to find that it was her mysterious dance partner. "I suggest you do what you have to do, m'lady. This doesn't look safe. Young Caduceus and I will hold him off until you can return." 

"But, it's Yuiichiro!" she snapped. "I need to find out what's going on." She pulled away. As she turned back, though, she saw that Iain had already intercepted him.

"Yuiichiro, dude, what are you doing?!" he cried, aghast.

"I'm here for Rei," Yuiichiro said, as he took a step towards her. His eyes were fixed on her, still glowing, and he looked wrong, somehow. Even past the glowing eyes.

"What do you mean, man?" Iain said, half slipping into English in his agitation. Then his eyes widened. "Holy shit- his head is shrinking!"

And so it was. With every step, his head grew smaller, and his body grew larger. He'd taken five steps into the room when his clothes started ripping and falling away. He grew huge, flabby, and naked. Worst of all, his head kept shrinking, until it disappeared entirely.

Rei stared in horror as the monster that seconds ago had been Yuiichiro advanced on her and raised its hands, exposing a toothy mouth in each palm, each with a long thick tongue licking its lips. Behind her, her mysterious dance partner said, "Professor, we've got the Hands That Feed up here." A pause. "No, I mean the fucking Defiler! You know who I'm talking about!"

Then Iain drew Lightbringer, lighting up the darkened gym, and lashed out at the monster. One of the hands came up and caught the blade by the tip, the sword going right into the mouth. And going farther, as the mouth seemed to gulp at it, swallowing the sword and finally biting it off at the hilt. Darkness returned. 

"IAIN!" Ami screamed. The people in the gym, who had until this point been frozen, watching, could move again. They began screaming and running away. Rei started struggling forward, trying to pull out an ofuda as the monster's other hand came up and slammed into his face, palm first, before he even had a chance to scream. The huge fingers closed around his head, and she didn't want to imagine what that mouth was doing to his face. The other hand, after swallowing, said in a strange, chittering voice, "Tasty good, we like swords!" With that it ripped off his pants as he struggled wildly. 

_Oh, shit! Not that! Rei thought frantically, and threw the ofuda as she broke free of the crowd. She saw the other Senshi burst out of the crowd as well, all the alter egos except for those of Moon, Pluto, and Saturn,. The ofuda smacked into the creature's flabby chest, and the hand that was about to grasp Iain's __other head gave a chittering cry. The creature dropped the poor exchange student, and staggered back, shrinking and growing a head. Iain gasped and vomited, and then Duo, of all people, rushed up and grabbed him, pulling him away from the creature. _

Within moments, Yuiichiro was standing there, still naked. He looked around wildly, stared at the half naked boy before him and the angry girls closing in, then turned and ran. They could see that there were still mouths in his palms as he left. 

21

The dance was over. Only the Senshi and their dates remained. Rei looked around. She didn't see her mysterious dance partner, but Toji and Kensuke were hanging back nervously. Iain was sobbing on the floor, trying to cover himself with his ripped pants, while Duo knelt beside him, as a loss on what to do. Her three friends were still stunned by the horror of what they had seen, while Haruka and Michiru raced to the door. As soon as they had glanced both ways out in the hall, Haruka yelled, "FUCK! He's gone already! He's fucking fast!" They moved out of sight into the hallway. 

"What the fuck was that thing?" Duo asked no one in particular. Toji and Kensuke came up silently and pulled Iain, still crying, to his feet. His face seemed none the worse for wear, except for the glistening around his... mouth...

"It kissed him, didn't it?" Rei asked Minako softly. 

She nodded. "I think so." 

Rei swallowed. "Fuck." None of them swore, ordinarily, but this situation seemed to call for it. 

"Come on, man," Toji said to Iain. "Let's get ya home. You'll be alright."

"It fucking pushed its tongue into my fucking mouth, Toji," Iain whispered. "I was fucking gagging on it. It tasted horrible. It was going to give me a fucking blow job with its other fucking hand!" 

Toji didn't respond, and the four boys started heading towards the doors, not looking at the girls as Iain kept crying. 

Before they got their, Haruka, Michiru, Usagi, and Mamoru appeared in the doorway, Usagi's eyes wide as Michiru quietly explained what had happened. Haruka said, "Come on, everyone, we need to get out of here." Translation: Let's get away from these people so that we can transform and find that thing!

The four Inner Senshi all nodded and moved, still not talking. 

22

As they left the school, they found Pluto waiting for them in the parking lot. "Gendo contacted me. They have someone tracking him. Come-"

"No, they don't. I lost him," Rei's mysterious dance partner said, appearing out of the darkness. "Still, I would suggest you ladies transform. 

They all looked at him for a moment. "Who are you? You seem familiar..." Usagi said, frowning.

The man replied, "I'm afraid that I can't tell you right now. It would cause more problems than it's worth. Let's deal with the Defiler, and then you can unmask me." 

"What is that thing? The Defiler?" Ami said shakily. "Was it about to do what I think it was about to do to Iain?"

"Yeah, it was," the man said, looking grim.

Pluto spoke up. "The Defiler is a Great Old One, a carnal monster that can possess those who know its true name. When it does, it will... violate all those close to its host, and anyone that gets in the way.

"You mean it rapes them," Makoto said flatly.

"Yes," Pluto replied. "Then it will consume the souls of the victims and the host, and leave." 

"Lovely," Mamoru grimaced. 

"And Yuiichiro's its host," Rei said softly.

Pluto nodded, though it wasn't a question. "Yes. Though how he learned its name, I don't know."

The discussion might have gone on, but at that point they were interrupted by a scream that came from the direction the boys had taken Iain in.

"We're fucking idiots!" Haruka shouted, already running. "Come _on, SAILORS! LET'S GO!"_

They went.

23

A dark figure chuckled as it waltzed into Yuiichiro's room and took the book.

24

The Defiler had just finished with Duo when the Sailor Senshi and the two masked men arrived. It stood and smiled at them with both its mouths. 

"Pretty sailors, pretty soldiers," the right mouth chittered. 

"That felt good, oh so good," gibbered the left one.

With that, the monster stepped onto Duo's back, snapping it with a crack very reminiscent of a dry branch. 

"NO!" Minako shouted. 

The other boys were all unconscious. Iain looked dead, lying in a pool of blood close to Duo, though which boy the blood belonged to wasn't clear. Toji was lying against a tree, and Kensuke was face down, draped over Toji's legs.

"Fuck," Uranus spit. "Those were good kids! Eat this, fucker!" With that battle cry, she produced the Space Sword and charged. 

"Uranus! NO!" Neptune cried. She moved forward as well, to back her lover up; or to avenge her. 

"Okay, we'll let them have their shot," Pluto said rapidly. "Spread out, and be ready to hit it with your attacks as soon as they get out of the way.

In the mean time, the Defiler chuckled a particularly eerie chuckle. "You know we are, baby tasty," the left hand chittered at Uranus. The Senshi of the Heavens reached the monster and lashed out at it with the Space Sword. The right hand came up and repeated the earlier performance, catching the blade and beginning to swallow it. 

Then Uranus shouted, "SPACE SWORD BUSTER!" Her sword glowed brightly for a moment, then the entire arm exploded, splattering Uranus with gore.

"YAAUGH!" the other hand screamed. But then something else sprayed out of the mouth; something whitish and sticky that slammed into Uranus and sent he sprawling like a fire hose, into the ground fifteen feet away.

"NO! NEPTUNE DEEP SUBMERGE!" The liquid energy lashed out, engulfing Y'golonac and throwing him back. Neptune rushed to her lover. "Uranus!"

"I'm okay, it's just hardened, I can't get out," Uranus snarled. "Just finish the damn thing off!"

Neptune nodded, then stood and turned toward the Defiler. It was now standing. She could see its flesh sloughing off in the after math of her attack, and grinned. This thing wasn't so tough.

Then something sprouted out of its stump and reformed into an arm in the matter of seconds. "Oh, shit."

The spray of whitish goop slammed her into a nearby tree, and almost instantly hardened, trapping her.

"Alright," Pluto said. "Blast it. _Pluto Dead Scream..." she whispered, and her attacked blasted out and slam into the Defiler._

"WIDE SPARKLING PRESSURE!" 

"VENUS CRESCENT BEAM!"

"BURNING MANDALA!"

"SHINE AQUA ILLUSION!" 

The elemental attacks slammed into Y'golonac's massive torso, spraying burnt and frozen flesh. The Great Old One was temporarily obscured. 

"Dodge," the mysterious masked man said helpfully. 

Pluto and Mars both managed to leap out of the way, but Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter all were caught by the goop. Sailor Moon made a face and decided it was time to step in. 

"CRISIS MAKE-UP!" 

Y'golonac laughed at the obligatory display of butterflies. "Silly girl, pretty girl!" the right hand said.

"Luscious girl can't scare us!" said the left

"Yeah, well, I should! RAINBOW MOON HEARTACHE!" 

"Blasts and bothers," the right hand of Y'golonac sighed. The two hands clapped together for a moment, and when they separated, long strands of darkness dripped from the mouths. Then the right hand wound of like a baseball pitcher, and faster than the eye could see lobbed a dozen balls of darkness towards Sailor Moon. Each ball slapped into a heart shaped piece of energy, snuffing it out like a candle.

"Oh, shit," Tuxedo Kamen muttered, then jumped and pulled Sailor Moon out of the way just before a ball of darkness exploded where she was standing. 

"_Pluto Dead Scream," Pluto whispered, blasting the Defiler again, giving them some time._

Mars began the Burning Mandela ritual again, when someone grabbed her arm. It was the mystery man. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "You've got to use a more powerful attack than that!" 

"Enough of this," Pluto snapped. "Pluto Temporal HELIX-" The left arm of Y'golonac suddenly stretched over thirty feet and slapped wetly into Pluto's face.

"That _is my most powerful attack!" Mars hissed back._

He shook his head. "No it's not! You've got to remember it! Your Meteorite attack?"

"MOON TIARA MAGIC!" The glowing disc smacked into the extended arm with an equally wet sound, severing it neatly. The stretched out arm fell with a thunk to the ground, and Pluto collapsed to her knees with a gasp. Y'golonac paused and seemed to concentrate, and the arm began to re-grow.

Tuxedo Kamen started chucking roses at the Great Old One. It ignored them as they imbedded themselves in its flesh. Then it leapt up to Tuxedo's branch with frightening speed. Tuxedo had enough time to say, "Oh-" before Y'golonac punched him through the canopy and into the air.

"TUXEDO KAMEN! NO!" Sailor Moon cried.

"Moon!" Pluto gasped. "Try healing him! It might drive out Y'golonac!"

"Damn it, Courage-chan, remember!" the mystery man shouted at Mars, shaking her. She shook her head; everything was so surreal! His identity, and so much more, were on the tip of her tongue.

"MOON HEALING ACTIVATION!" The healing energy washed over the monster as it jumped down to Sailor Moon.

The mouths grinned. "Nice try, Princess." WHAM! Sailor Moon skidded to a stop forty feet away.

"SERENITY!" Mars cried, spinning. Then the mystery man jumped over her head and a blast of pinkish red lightening shot out of his hand at Y'golonac. She blinked, sure she'd seen something like that before, back when she'd first become Sailor Mars. He landed in front of Y'golonac, and a sword and shield materialized in his hands. 

"Once again, no cigar," the right hand said. It lashed out in a blur and smacked him across the face. Mars saw the mask go flying, but his back was to her.

"Shit! He's gonna-" 

The man drove the sword into the spot where the head should have been, but the Defiler didn't even seem to flinch as it wound up and slammed a fist into him, crumpling the shield like paper and sending him flying back into her, knocking her back. 

They skidded several feet, and came to a rest with Mars sitting with her back against a tree, his head in her lap. She stared down into his beautiful blue eyes and watched him cough up blood. He smiled. "It's up to you now, Courage-chan." 

And she remembered. "Jadeite? Jade-chan? How-" But he was unconscious. She stood up, reveling in the memory of excitedly showing her lover the brand new attack she'd created, even more powerful than the Flame Sniper, while the stars and the great blue and green crescent shone down from above. 

"MARS CRYSTAL POWER, MAKE-UP!" 

As light washed over her for the second time that night, her skirt became white, with yellow and red bands along the hem, and a belt with the symbol of Mars appeared. She posed her pose.

"Cut the speech!" Pluto shouted. "Just attack! _Pluto Dead Scream..." _

Mars nodded as the blast of purple energy knocked back the creature. She stretched her arms up above her head, with the palms straight up. "MARS!" Similar to her Burning Mandela attack, balls of fire appeared in a circle around her. Her right arm circled down until it was straight out in front of her. "BLAZING!" Streamers of flame started to flow out of all the balls and into one directly above her head. In a moment a glowing white sphere of super condensed flame floated above her head. "METEORITE!" She brought her left hand down and slapped it against her right, and the globe of flame flew into Y'golonac's chest at the speed of a bullet, leave a trail of after glow. There was only a slight flash when it struck the monster. 

Even so, the attack left her nearly blind in the darkness. When her eyes grew used dark again, she saw Y'golonac swiftly shrinking down and growing a head. In a moment, Yuiichiro was standing there, blinking in surprise, with a fist-sized hole through his chest where his heart would have been. After a second, his eyes rolled up and he quietly collapsed.

Super Sailor Mars felt herself transform back into Hino Rei. And then darkness washed over her, and she knew nothing else.

25

Sailor Pluto leaned heavily on her staff, tasting blood and something far less pleasant. She looked around at the unconscious and trapped warriors around her, then sighed and set to releasing those still trapping in the... goo. 

26

And not half a mile away, though at a far lower altitude, a woman stood laughing. She smiled at the unconscious bodies of all the HERZ council members except for Washu, Ritsuko, and Ruri, who were in Washu's lab. Oh, and Reinard Megumi wasn't their either, for this woman _was Reinard Megumi, or had been, until she'd accidentally summoned the Crawling Chaos. And so, she grinned at those whom she'd once worked with, and then set about putting the Messenger's plans into effect. And the Stars grew ever closer to being Right._

The End... for now.

Author's Notes: Yo, yo, yo! Things are getting even spookier! Oooh. All sorts of mysteries left. Are all the Sailors okay? What about Iain and the other boys? What was Jadeite doing there, and why did seeing his face trigger Mars' memory of her attack? Is Y'golonac really gone? What's going to happen to Gendo and the rest of HERZ? What horrors will occur next? MWA HA HA! You'll have to wait until the next installment of Sailor Moon Lovecraft!

Or at least you would, if there was anyone actually reading this. For Serenity's sake! If you read this, review! Just a note, this is the first revision of this chapter. 

Now the actual notes. The chrysanthemum, according to my Encarta encyclopedia, is Japan's royal flower, or something like that. So I thought it'd be at least somewhat appropriate for Jadeite to give to Rei. I am standing behind my R rating, just because of the movie Pulp Fiction, which I saw the other day. I don't describe anything, just imply it, so there. Finally, there is precious little info on Y'golonac out there, so I mostly built on what information I got from Children of an Elder God. 

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters in this fic except for Iain Caduceus. Don't sue me. 

This story is Copyright 2002 by C-kun and Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions.  


	7. Memories and Issues The Crawling Chaos

Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions 

Proudly Presents

Sailor Moon L(ovecraft) 

Episode 4.0

Memories and Issues

The Crawling Chaos

This story takes place after Sailor Moon S. It can be considered an alternate universe, since it takes the place of Sailor Moon Super S.

Additional Note: This episode will be very dark and unhappy. Read at your own risk. 

1

Haruka was tired. There had been a lot of excitement that night, what with giant perverted monsters taking over people's bodies. She was getting a little irritated about being kicked around by these damn Great Old Ones; _The next one's mine, she thought grimly. _

She, Michiru, and Setsuna were nursing cups of coffee and trying to unwind while leaning against an unused counter in Ritsuko's medical lab. The good doctor, with the assistance of Ami and, more importantly, Ami's computer, was checking on the unconscious. There were a lot of unconscious. Makoto simply paced impatiently. 

Toji, Kensuke, and Iain had all been rendered unconscious by the Defiler before the Senshi had even arrived. Ritsuko had determined, much to everyone's relief, that none of them had been raped by the Defiler; it had apparently only had time to do Duo. Not that that was a good thing, but better only one than two or three.

Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen were also unconscious, due to being punched so hard they bounced. Likewise, Jadeite was knocked for much the same reason, though he was over in one corner being attended to by Washu-chan instead of Ritsuko. 

Sailor Mars was out of it due to channeling too much energy while her body still wasn't used to it. Her new attack had easily consumed as much or more energy than Sailor Moon's Rainbow Moon Heartache attack, without the help of the Holy Grail. Among the Senshi, the final casualty was Sailor Venus, who had fallen unconscious for reasons Ritsuko had yet to determine after being trapped in the Defiler's... goo.

And after that, there was everyone on the HERZ council who had been gassed by the traitor Megumi at the emergency meeting. Luckily, Ritsuko, Washu, and Ruri had been monitoring the battle, otherwise they would have been unconscious too, and that would have really left everyone in a pickle. Maya had already regained consciousness, and was woozily helping Ruri to determine the extent of Megumi's sabotage; she'd destroyed a lot of information and equipment. The rest were still under the effects of the gas. 

Finally, Makoto lost the patience. "How much long is this going to take?!" she cried. "Is everyone alright?"

"Everyone is fine, Makoto-san," Ritsuko replied. "They can all take more punishment than this. They should all wake up in a little while. The only thing I'm not sure about is why Venus lost consciousness. I'm guessing some sort of psychological reaction due to seeing her date raped, but I can't be sure."

Makoto winced. "Oh. Okay." She sighed and poured herself some coffee. 

Soon, though, the other unconscious HERZ members started coming around, and the Senshi from planets outside the asteroid belt were drafted to explain everything that had happened. Four cups of coffee slowly grew cold on the counter.

2

Oh, god, oh, god! What have we done?

We've done what I was supposed to: meted out justice. We _are the Pretty Sailor Suit Soldier for love and justice, after all._

But V, they were human! We, we shouldn't have done that! 

They deserved it! They fucking deserved it! Did you see what they did to that boy! They, they...

Oh, god, V! Oh god, I wish I hadn't seen that! No one should have to see that!

No one should have to experience that! Those fuckers got what they deserved! 

Christ, V. How, how could anyone... anyone do such a thing? I... it's almost worse when they do it to another guy... I wish Artemis hadn't followed them; I wish he hadn't led us there!

So you would have preferred that they'd finished raping that boy, Minako? 

NO! I mean... I don't know. 

They would have done it again, too! That Zed guy, talking about how "it's a young one tonight." Who knows how many times they'd done it? 

Yeah... but was the Crescent Beam to their... privates _really necessary? _

If it had been you? Or your father? "Young one" means they did older men, too. I bet they would have killed him afterwards, too. 

Oh god... Oh god, oh "GOD!" Sailor Venus sat up with a scream, detransforming as she did so. Everyone in the room who was awake jumped and stared at her. 

"Jesus..." she whispered, crying. "They raped him, and I killed them... I blew their privates off with a Crescent Beam, and I killed them... oh god, oh god..."

"Minako? Minako!" Ami cried, kneeling by her friend. "Minako, look at me, talk to me! Minako, everything's alright! You'll be fine!" Blatant lie, there, but...

Minako focused on Ami. "Oh, Ami..." she whimpered. "Zed's dead, Ami... Zed's dead..."

Makoto quickly made her way over, and the two spent a long time holding Minako until the poor blonde cried herself back to sleep.

3

"Jadeite-san! Oh, Jadeiiite-san! Where are you?" Lady Courage called excitedly. She was searching through the halls of the Moon Palace, where he liked to spend most of his time, reading a book or bantering with the nobles and servants who passed by. While he occasionally flirted, he paid for it, too, when she found out about it. She would ignore him for weeks at a time, which was quite the punishment, considering how often he and his lord had to be away. After all, he was a guardian of Earth, serving Prince Endymion of Earth. He could hardly spend a lot of time on the Moon.

"Jadeite-san!" she shouted, starting to get irritated. 

She put her hands on her hips with a huff, and was about to turn and go check another corridor when two strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist from behind and a strong voice whispered into her ear, "I'm right here, Courage-chan. "There's no need to yell."

She blushed bright red and quickly jumped away. "Jadeite!" she cried. "Don't do that in public!"

"And don't call me Courage-chan, either," she continued, voice lower. "It's not proper." She brushed a lock of raven hair out of her face, and did her best to glare at him. 

He laughed. His laugh was rich, mellow, and soulful; it was one of her favorite sounds in the world, and she couldn't continue any pretense of anger when he did so. As long as he wasn't mocking her, she couldn't help but join him. So she too laughed.

After they had calmed themselves, Jadeite went on, as small smile still on his face. "Well, you were calling me?

That reminded her of her original reason for searching for him. "Oh, Jadeite-san! You'll be so proud of me! I've created a new attack!"

He blinked. "A new attack?" 

She nodded excitedly. "Yes, much more powerful than the Flame Sniper! Come on!" She grabbed his hand and rushed towards the magic-users' practice grounds, on the outskirts of the palace grounds. 

Jadeite was bemusedly dragged through a large portion of the palace until they finally arrived. He stumbled to a halt as soon as she let him go and leaned down onto his knees to catch his breath. Courage looked at him with surprise.

"You're tired after that?" she asked incredulously. "You're tired after that and _you're supposed to be __protecting Prince Endymion?"_

He treated her to a rather cold glance. "I could have teleported here. You must remember, Senshi-sama, most people don't have your drastically improved physiology. My circulatory and respiratory systems aren't quite as efficient as yours."

She had the grace to be embarrassed. "Oh. Sorry."

He chuckled and straightened up. "Well, Courage-hime, I'd like to see this attack of yours."

She flushed bright red. "I'm no princess!"

He chuckled again. "You're the daughter of the ruler of Mars. I'd say that qualifies you as a princess."

"Pa—Father's only a Duke. You can't be a princess unless your father's a king."

Smirking, Jadeite said, "The Mars Colony easily qualifies as a kingdom of its own. If Queen Serenity would break down and declare the colonies kingdoms and herself Empress, we'd have plenty more royal blood in the pool."

Courage smiled as him, in a way that made his blood pressure go up. "Yes, but if I was a princess, I'd have to marry a prince, dear Jadeite-" she glanced around, then said with a lowered voice, "chan. We wouldn't be able to see each other anymore."

He swallowed and scratched the back of his head nervously, hoping that he'd be able to get a cold shower soon. "I, er, guess we'll just have to get married before she does that then, huh?"

She froze, and stared at him in shock. He'd asked... he'd actually asked... kinda. It was good enough. "Oh, Jadeite-chan!" she cried joyously, leaping forward and throwing her arms around him, producing a grunt on his part. "I accept! Oh, of course I accept!"

Jadeite blinked as he automatically wrapped his arms around her. "Uh?" He looked down at her as she gazed up at him—expectantly, almost. "Oh. Oh, sh- uh, I better get the ring out, huh?" She nodded, smiling. He quickly reached into one of his pockets and dug around, which was difficult with her arms wrapped around him. Finally, he pulled out a ring case and stepped gently away from her. Dropping to one knee, he said, "Well, I'd imagined pulling this out under much more romantic conditions, but now that it slipped out..." He opened the case.

She couldn't help but gasping. It was beautiful. The symbol of Mars was traced out in fiery rubies, with a great diamond in the center. "Oh, Jadeite-chan..." she breathed. He took it out of the case and gently slipped it onto her finger. "Oh, Jadeite-chan!" she cried again, and threw her arms around him once more; this time, however, she pressed her lips to his, and they didn't move for several minutes. 

Finally, they parted, gasping slightly for air. When they were both breathing adequately, Jadeite said, "Well, why don't we celebrate with some explosions. I'd love to see you're new attack, my love."

She laughed. "Oh, Jadeite-chan. Always so focused." Then she turned and mentally called up the toughest target the state of the art Magic-User Training Facility had to offer. She noticed him raise an eyebrow when it appeared. She smirked and said, "Even Senshi Uranus needs to strike one of those two or three times with her World Shaking attack, right?"

He nodded. He believed that Senshi Pluto would be able to destroy one in one hit, if she ever actually practiced, but outside her, Uranus was the most powerful Senshi. 

Courage grinned. "Well, watch this."

He couldn't actually, because the Mars Blazing Meteorite was too bright to look at. However, she did destroy the target with one blast, and she didn't even hit it full on. However, she also misjudged her distances badly, and they both left the training grounds that day with scorched eyebrows. 

4

All the members of the HERZ council had awakened, and were off frantically doing their duties in a time like this. The Senshi, Ritsuko, and Washu were still in the medical section of Ritsuko's lab, the Senshi waiting and the doctors attending their remaining patients. 

Usagi was hovering unsteadily over Sailor Mars, worried about the protracted length of the dark haired girl's incapacitation. Though, if asked, Usagi would have just wanted to know why Rei hadn't woken up yet. Mamoru was sitting at the counter, drinking coffee and applying an ice pack to his eye, while Haruka snickered at him.

Usagi noticed Mars stirring, and said, "Finally! Doctor Akagi, she's waking up!"

The doctor called back, "Just a moment, Usagi."

Mars's head rolled a little, and she smiled, finally opening her eyes. She blinked a couple of times, than, looking confused, said, "Serenity-hime? What are you doing here?"

Usagi blinked. "What do you mean, Rei? Where else would I be?"

Mars frowned and tried to sit up. "Oooh... my head..." She quickly lay down again. "What's going on, Your Highness? Last thing I remember was... was demonstrating my new attack for Jade-chan—" She suddenly cut herself off, then said, "Oh, Serenity-hime! I have wonderful news! Jade-chan asked me to marry him!"

This got the attention of everyone in the room. Ami quickly trotted over and started scanning her. "She's, she's somehow mentally reverted to her former life!" she said, frightened. 

Mars blinked at Ami surprisedly. "Wisdom-sama? What are you doing here? What is this former life you are talking about?"

Usagi grabbed her and shook her. "Rei! Rei! It's me! Usagi! Remember, Odango-atama?" She looked incredibly frightened as she gave Mars another shake.

Mars yelped as her head bounced off the medical bed and snapped, "Usagi, what are you trying to do, kill me?!"

Both froze then. Relief swept over Usagi's face, while terror graced Mars's visage. She whispered, "Oh, Kami-sama, Usagi! I, I was totally gone! I thought, I thought..." Then she broke down in tears, and Usagi gently embraced her. 

Mamoru grew a little red, watching. 

When Rei had finally calmed herself (and detransformed), she started telling them about her dream. All the Senshi gathered around she explained about her dream. After she finished, Usagi said, "So you were engaged to Jadeite."

Rei nodded solemnly, glancing at the unconscious form of that very man, which Washu-chan bustling about him.

Setsuna blinked in surprise and said, "Of course! You didn't know that? I mean, even if you two were by far the last to get engaged."

They all looked at her with narrowed eyes and shook their heads. Makoto looked a little irritated. "No, we didn't. Unlike someone I could mention, we haven't kept the memories of our past lives."

"Well," Rei interrupted. "A lot's been coming back to me, since I woke up. I can remember all sorts of images, but I'm going to have to think about them a while to make any sense of them."

Setsuna nodded. "Memories of past lives are like that," she said sagely.

They all glared at her. She flinched, a little. "What?"

"So who were the rest of us engaged to?" Haruka said, looking especially dangerous.

"Oh, no worries there, Haruka," Setsuna said, with an airy wave of her hand and a weak front of false confidence. "Uranus and Neptune were lovers in the Silver Millennium, too."

The other two outers breathed a sigh of relief.

"What about us?" Makoto growled, aptly demonstrating that Setsuna wasn't out of the fire yet. 

"Oh? Er, well..." Setsuna trailed off nervously, wishing she'd thought to make sure they'd known this before, then said in a rush, "Jupiter was engaged to Nephrite, Mercury to Zoicite, and Venus to Kunzite."

Makoto blinked, and then said, "Oh. Never met him."

Ami, on the other hand, became quite upset. "I was engaged to _Zoicite?" she cried. "But, but, he was, he was gay!"_

"Bi, actually," Setsuna said in a not at all reassuring manner. "He and Kunzite were lovers before they met Mercury and Venus."

Ami looked faintly ill. "I'm going to go see how Caduceus-kun is doing..." she said, then wandered off.

Setsuna looked concernedly after her. "Oh, dear. I think I've upset her."

Haruka and Michiru glared. "What's wrong with being gay?" Michiru muttered huffily.

5

"Wha' happened?" Toji said dazedly. "He sat up and looked at all the fine, fine women with nothing but good intentions—no, wait, that's a song—all the chicks around him and wondered if he'd died and gone to Heaven. 

"Someone spiked the punch," Ritsuko said to him matter-of-factly. "You got so drunk you fell down and hit your head. Couple other people did, too. We're treating you down here. If you're feeling better, you should head home."

Toji blinked. "I hold my alcohol better..." He trailed off, noticing Ritsuko's raised eyebrow. "Oh, uh, what're all o' them doing?" he asked nervously, trying to change the subject. 

"They're still feeling ill. Now come along, you need to go home." And she hustled him out the door before he could protest. 

A few minutes later, the performance was enacted again, with Kensuke.

6

He opened his eyes. "Wha'?" He directed the question at no one in particular.

"Iain-kun? Are you alright?" A rather blurry girl with blur hair was looking down at him concernedly. Or maybe there were two. It was hard to be sure.

"Ano. Don't know. Who are you?" he asked.

She looked surprised, and at that point an older, blonde woman appeared over him. This woman asked the girl, "Not alright?"

The girl nodded. "Not alright."

It was the beginning of a very strange evening—er, moring—for poor Iain.

"What's going on?" he asked. _I wonder what's going on, and who these people are? I know who I __am, but that's about it... I wonder where Chris is. After thinking this, he decided it would be a pretty good question, and so, decided to inquire, "Where's Chris?"_

"He has no accent," the blonde woman noted with a hint of curiosity, while she looked at various computer displays nearby. 

"Hmm," the blue haired girl responded distractedly as she busily typed away at a very strange palmtop computer. 

_Strange hair color, Iain noted. Then he tried again. "Where's Chris?"_

"Well," the blue haired girl said, "he seems to have amnesia. He's reverted back to just before the 'tragedy.' I don't know why he's speaking perfect Japanese, though I bet he can't speak English now."

_Well, holy crap. I'm thinking in Japanese, the boy thought, surprised with himself. __This probably isn't going to be fun._

He soon figured out how correct that thought was.

7

"So, let me get this straight. My friends—check that, my entire school—are all dead, and I came over to Japan as an exchange student to get away from my misery. I ended up somehow falling in which you people. You're all reincarnated magical warriors from the moon who currently seem to be fighting off attacks by ancient alien gods that want to destroy humanity. And I'm kinda sorta helping you. And I broke Chris's sword."

The Senshi exchanged glances, then, as the gaze of the assembled crowd fell on Rei, for whatever reason, she said, "That about sums it up."

"And you have a crush on Ami," Haruka added helpfully. 

Ami turned bright red and hissed, "Ha-RU-ka!" at the grinning blonde.

Iain blinked and looked at Ami. "I can see why."

She turned even redder.

He then looked at Mamoru. "Did my non-amnesiac self mention you look like my friend Chris probably would have at your age?"

Mamoru nodded. "Yeah, we went over that."

"Good. Just thought I'd mention that."

He then sat silently for a little while. "I'm... I'm going to need a while to get used to this."

Ami nodded quickly. "I'm sure you do. We'll give you some space to think for a while."

He smiled at her, though it was an odd smile. "Thank you. I'd appreciate that." The people around him cleared out, and he lay back on the medical bed he'd woken up in. What to do, what to do...?

8

Having nothing better to do, Rei sat and watched Washu work on Jadeite, and thought about what his return meant. And after a little while of this, she felt joy rising in her heart. She'd loved him more than anything, and she could remember it all, now! If he was back to the way he had been...

"Washu-chan? Is he... is he the way he was before... before Beryl... got to him?" 

Washu flashed her a quick grin. "Completely. He has all his memories, as well, including his time with Beryl. We've had him out of the remains of the Dark Kingdom for a long time. Since right after the King in Yellow incident. He's taken a long time getting over that, I'm afraid, but I believe he's come to grips with it, and it will definitely help if you forgive him."

Rei was smiling now. "I don't think that will be a problem," she said, quietly yet ecstatically. Finally, she'd have her love back, a love of her very own, as strong as Usagi and Mamoru...

There are times in everyone's life when, instead of the uncaring universe that would just as soon grind us to dust as make us happy, the universe actually seems to actively and maliciously crush our hopes and dreams. This phenomenon is embodied in Murphy's Law, "If anything can go wrong, it will, usually at the worst possible time." Or something like that. At any rate, Murphy's Law decided to kick into effect at this point in Rei's life. 

One of the machines monitoring Jadeite suddenly sounded an alarm. Washu, looking startled, was only able to take two steps towards the machines before Jadeite's body convulsed, and maggot's started pouring and writhing out of every one of his body orifices. Rei screamed incoherently. 

"What the-?" Washu shouted. She started frantically scanning her equipment. "Something must have happened while he was still trapped in the Dark Kingdom! We knew that Servitors of the Outer Gods had infested that blighted dimension, but- MNgph!" Jadeite, or, at least his body, had been entirely covered with maggots as she'd been talking. Then, even more terrifying, it had stood up. A humanoid figure made entirely out of maggots. Which had reached out and engulfed Washu, as the others stood watching, frozen in horror. 

Then Rei screamed. "NO! MARS CRYSTAL POWER, MAKE-UP!" But as the transformation washed over her, she had no idea how she could save Jadeite.

9

"It's over," Fuyutsuki said, sadly, as the portal in Gendo's office sprang to life, and horrors beyond human comprehension burst out. "We were too slow." Neither he nor Gendo had very long to regret it, though. 

10

"Walking worms," Ami said, horrifying. Now Washu had been transformed into the same sort of creature Jadeite had become, and they were quickly advancing on Mars. "Mars, you've got to destroy them!" Then she, along with the other senshi, began her transformation sequence. 

"No..." Mars whispered. "NOO! Jade-chan!" she screamed, and then, of all things, lunged forward and embraced the figure that had once been Jadeite. In moments, she too was consumed by the worms.

"MARS!" screamed Sailor Moon, horrified. "REI! NOOOoooo!" Her scream trailed off as she collapsed to her knees. Jupiter, in the mean time, grabbed Minako off of the med bed she was one to get her away from the three walking piles of worms.

Neptune and Uranus were by the exit, not sure what to do, as Jupiter pulled the still unconscious Minako away from the creatures and Mercury tried to coax Sailor Moon out of her grief. So, they were rather surprised when the door they were next to was smashed down and a strange creature that seemed mostly like a combination between a toad and an octopus, though it was constantly changing shaped, barged in and impaled them both on very point tentacles with claws at the end. Pluto stared in shock. Then, Jupiter screamed.

Pluto spun to see her and Minako being consumed by black sludge that was pouring out of an air duct. "Always the air duct..." she whispered. Then she made up her mind. She strode the four steps to where Sailor Moon was sitting in shock. She leaned down and snatched the Silver Crystal with one deft movement, leaving a very surprised Usagi and a horrified Mercury. Pluto did look very sorry as she said, "I'm sorry, your highness. I must reset the timeline, and this is the only thing that will allow me to do so. Goodbye."

And with that, she disappeared. 

11

**Brand new high school collapses during night**

**By MORISATO MEGUMI**

**Tokyo**** Times**

Very early yesterday morning, SGN High School, the brand new, highly advanced school built over this past summer, completely collapsed into its extensive basements, trapping a number of faculty and administrators in the ruins. It is unknown at this time if any of the administrators, or the students that some parties are claiming were also in the school, have survived. Rescue operations are underway...

12

The Gaijin boy stood silently on a hill near the ruins of the school, watching the workers swarm around the remains of the school. He, of course, knew everyone inside was already dead. 

Then he turned, stuck his hands in his pockets, and started whistling as he made his way down the hill. He sure had had a lucky break. Ever since that damned Champion had killed his body, he'd been stuck inside that stupid sword of his. Then, when Caduceus had idiotically tried to go up against the Great Old One- Imagine, Y'golonac showing up in Tokyo!- the Great Old One had broken the sword. Even better, within minutes, Y'golonac had totally shattered Caduceus's mind! It had been easier than making a grilled cheese sandwich to eliminate the remains of Iain's psyche, and take his body. 

A woman, whom he vaguely recognize from looking at the fragments of Caduceus's memory that he still had, stepped out of an alley way and pointed a gun at him.

"I'm sorry, Caduceus-kun, but I can't let anyone out of this alive," the now certifiably insane Reinard Megumi said grimly. 

The boy raised an eyebrow, then reached out mentally and psychokinetically crushed the woman's head. Absorbing all the power of the sword as it broke had been a nice bonus. "My names not Caduceus, bitch. It's Daniel."

Daniel Daniel's figured he'd need to get his name officially changed when he got back to the good ol' US of A. Then he could finish creating his own little patch of Hell. It was good to be a demon.

13

Pluto stepped into the Time Gate holding her staff in one hand and the Silver Crystal in the other. To her surprise, there was a man standing there, looking contemplatively through a view screen, watching the Caduceus boy walking away from a corpse with a crushed head. But Pluto didn't have time for that. Incidentally, she also realized who the man must be.

"You!" she cried. "You're the Crawling Chaos! Nyarlathotep, Messanger of the Outer Gods!"

The man jumped and turned to her. "Good guess, Pluto-chan." 

"You're the one who did this, aren't you?!" she growled. "Blocking my time powers, bringing about the Day of Return thousands of years early?!"

He nodded, grinning slightly. "Right again."

"Why?" she grated out.

He shrugged. "I was bored."

"Grrr," she grrred. Then she raised the Silver Crystal and pointed it at him. He only had time to widen his eyes before a massive wave of temporal energy vaporized them both.

14

Tsukino Usagi stretched luxuriously in her bed. She was so glad she'd passed her high school exams. She wondered what was waiting for her at Juuban High School. She chuckled, thinking _As long as the next enemy isn't some sort of horrible tentacle creature like in that terrible hentai anime Minako accidentally rented. With that, she drifted off to sleep._

15

Nyarlathotep watched Pluto go about her business in the Time Gate, and growled a little with irritation. After all, being an entity that existed in infinite dimensions beyond space and time, a little fourth dimensional energy was hardly going to destroy him. It hadn't really felt good, and his masters had decided to be cranky with him, and that hadn't been fun either. He figured he had better leave the Senshi alone for the time being. He wandered off, wondering what he could do to the Dogmen of Sirius. 

THE END

PERMINATELY

A/N: Well, it's done. Took me damn long enough. This certainly wasn't the way I'd planned on finishing this, but it will have to do, because, quite frankly, I'm tired of this story. I should have known better than to start a multipart series. I always run out of steam before I'm able to finish them. I apologize for the poor conclusion, but that's the best you're getting out of me.

However, this doesn't mean I plan on leaving the concept alone. I'm still going to do Lovecraft/Sailor Moon fusions. I just don't want to do them in this story anymore. Cause quite frankly, I don't like it much anymore. I know how Jackson Ferrell felt when he ended Shin Slurpee Evangelion. Since this story was a Sailor Moon style story with creatures from H.P. Lovecraft, I want to try a Lovecraftian story with characters from Sailor Moon next. Don't count on it coming out anytime soon, though. 

Sorry bout the lack of a scene 13 intermission. I just wanted to get this done. I'd like to thank everyone who's read my stuff, and especially the people who left reviews. To Wyrm, in response to his review, I have no desire to write tentacle porn. Nor did anyone ever actually get raped in Lovecraft's writings. Or if they did, I haven't read the story. Again, thanks for the reviews.

Sailor Moon L is outside of continuity for any story involving Iain Caduceus and his friends.  It was stupid of me to use him in it. 

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon. I don't own the concepts from H.P. Lovecraft's stories. If I owned either, I wouldn't be posting this stuff for free on the Internet. However, even if it's free, this story is Copyright © 2002 by C-kun and Book, Staff, and Spirit Productions. All rights reserved. Sayonara. 


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